ANNUAL REPORT - Department of Biotechnology

Bioresource Development and Utilization
National Bioresource Development Board
Programmes under the Board continued on
characterization of the biodiversity at both primary
and secondary level, prospecting of bioresources for
potential products, improvement of bioresources and
capacity building/awareness generation. The Fourth
meeting of the Board under the Chairmanship of
th
Hon'ble Minister S&T and ES was held on 25 July
2006. During the year two meetings of the Steering
Committee and four meetings of the Scientific
Advisory Committee were held. In addition a number
of idea generation meetings and brainstorming
sessions were held to initiate programmes in new
areas such as Zingibers, Honey Bee, DNA
Barcoding, Microbial Prospecting etc. Some of the
salient achievements of the ongoing programmes are
as follows:
Bioresource Characterization and Digitized
Inventorization:
The programme on Biodiversity Characterization at
Landscape Level using Satellite Remote Sensing
and Geographic Information System executed by
Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun,
NRSA in collaboration with other DOS centres,
universities and NGOs, has generated geospatial
biodiversity data on important biodiversity rich
regions of the country. Under Phase II, Eastern
Ghats, Central India and Mangrove regions have
been mapped. 80% of the country's forest cover has
been mapped. To complete the whole country a
Phase III has been launched for Biodiversity
characterization at landscape level using satellite
remote sensing in parts of Deccan Peninsula, North
West India and Himalayan Cold Desert.
In the project on mapping and quantitative
assessment of bioresources of Western Ghats about
a third of the Western Ghats has already been
sampled. Specimens of about 1000 species have
been collected and new populations of at least four
endangered species have been located, distribution
maps have been prepared. About 4000 images have
been compiled for 1000 plants from the field and
fliers have been developed for 400 species.
In a similar project on Quantitative assessment and
mapping of plant resources of Eastern Ghats, all the
six teams have initiated the field work. 324 plant
species representing 133 trees, 20 shrubs, 98 herbs
and vines, 65 grasses and 8 other life forms covering
67 families were recorded from 81 grids, covering 111
transects in the South Central zone. Overall, 23, 960
tree individuals representing 38 families with a range
of 364-760 tree density were recorded. Eighty eight
percent of all trees recorded in published literature
and 8 new species were recorded from the forest
region of kadapa hills. In the Northern zone, 143 plant
species were recorded from 45 grids and 76
transects. The Northern Eastern zone recorded 180
plant species from 37 grids and 44 transects, while
North-central zone recorded 235 plant species from
44 grids and 57 transects. Southern-Eastern Zone
recorded 320 plant species from 51 grids and 70
transects.
Jeeva Sampada a digitized inventory of
Bioresources has been developed. The database of
approx. 7 GB, packaged in nine CDs contains
information on 39,000 species, with over 82,00,000
records. Over 400 scientists from over 150 centres
across the country have worked together to complete
this enormous task.
For proper integration of all the databases - spatial
and non-spatial, an Indian Bioresource Information
Network (IBIN) has been launched, as a service and
network system for all the digital databases on
bioresources. The network comprises two interacting
nodes, one for the predominantly non-spatial data
sets and the other to serve predominantly spatial
data sets, which would be on a common web-based
portal. The purpose of such an effort is to facilitate the
use of the existing digital databases by the diverse
end users; promote interlinking of the diverse
databases through a continuous interaction and
promote a continuous growth of the databases and
their utility in conservation. (The website address is
www.ibin.co.in) This IBIN portal along with Jeeva
Sampda was launched by Shri Kapil Sibal, the
Hon'ble Minister of Science and Technology, and
th
Earth Sciences, GOI on 25 July 2006.
Molecular characterization and conservation
As many as 9860 rice landraces belonging to ten
different groups based on their maturity and grain
characteristics of CG Core Collections maintained at
Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur were
analyzed for the four nutritionally important traits, the
grain protein, lysine, iron and zinc concentration. Top
57 Research and Development