CHENNAI: The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has formed an expert group to monitor the Designated National Repositories (DNR) to keep in safe custody specimens of different categories of biological materials such as plants, animals, and micro-organisms.
Giving details of the high-level committee to prevent bio-piracy and provide for bio-security, NBA Chairman Prof. S. Kannaiyan told reporters on Friday that the monitoring group comprised of the NBA Chairman and eight members.
The Secretary, NBA, will be the convenor. It would visit each of the identified 25 national laboratories with high quality of storing and maintaining the biological materials at least once a year.
The National Repositories shall provide technical expertise for formulation of Government policies on biological resources and for information to the public.
He explained that an emergency plan had been designed to manage disaster, provide priority rescue efforts to all authenticated specimens and especially type specimen collections from the Repository.
A complete updated back up of the animal/plant records/micro-organisms in a computer database shall be kept off-site by the DNR to guard against any possible loss.
Dr. Kannaiyan said all educational and research institutions and NGOs holding biological collection shall annually report to the national laboratories about the total number of registered collections, specimens sent out on loan, total holdings, new additions to the DNR (depending on the specific group of data).
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