Plant Biotechnology in India
o Plant Biotechnology in India: A Pointer to the Future :
o Since the 1990s, India’s biotechnology industry has made rapid progress and is emerging as one of the fastest growing industries, in terms of the volumes of investment attracted. A Damodaran discusses the structural issues connected with the development of the biotechnology industry in India and considers certain critical issues that are likely to inhibit its rapid growth. Intellectual property rights and post R&D regulatory frameworks could be critical factors in promoting investments in the biotech sector. Private investments in the sector are crucially conditioned by differences in IPR regimes.
o The multi-layered regulations have their advantages as well as disadvantages. Their emphasis on the elements of biosafety, food security and conservation of biological resources could promote producer and consumer welfare, besides spurring technological innovations. However, in the post R&D phase they create complications, which are expressed in the delays in commercial application of invented products or technologies. The time consuming Bt cotton development and commercialisation process in India is a case in point. The challenge is how to streamline post R&D regulations for biotech products in India, without compromising on bio-safety, sustainability and farmers rights.
o The multi-regulatory controls on the post R&D segment of the biotech value chain could prove the critical foundation for strategic alliances between start-up companies and downstream units in India’s biotech sector. The paper suggests various models to enable the process. In the case of transgenics, the regulations are major checkpoints in product development. The problems of pricing and marketing of transgenics are critical, given the vagaries of demand for transgenic plants and seeds in the Indian agriculture sector. The paper rounds off its principal arguments by proposing incorporation of product development concerns in existing national and sub-national biotech policies.
Plant biotechnology offers research and production of transgenic plants of plant products or micro organisms which could be of use to mankind as food, medicine, life saving drugs etc Genetic engineering is the apt term. We can produce raw materials like starch for industries, protein and food supplements in bulk quantities in laboratories which could be used by industries for use as human or animal feeds. In plant breeding, for yield, resistance to pests and diseases, stress conditions, etc we can use biotechnology.
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