India to spend Rs 250 crore for biodiversity capacity building

HYDERABAD: The Centre has earmarked Rs 250 crore to conserving biological diversity by strengthening the institutional mechanism and upgrading the human technical capabilities of the state and central organisations set up for this purpose, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday. He was here to inaugurate the conference of parties (COP) on biological diversity in India.

The other measures as elaborated by Singh to conserve and maintain ecological balance include tweaking the national rural employment guarantee scheme to create green jobs for rural households and allocating funds to developing countries to attain the bio diversity objectives.

Calling upon other parties and countries to work towards reviving biodiversity based livelihood options and adopt the Nagoya protocol, Singh said, "I would urge all the parties to formalise the Protocol because global action is imperative and cannot brook delay." India recently ratified the Nagoya Protocol - a treatise that is internationally binding on countries to work towards the conservation of biological diversity and related goals.

The first COP in India hosted in Hyderabad met to discuss issues pertaining to conserving the flora and fauna and to arrive at a consensus on how to achieve the biodiversity targets set globally by the United Nations.

The three week-long conference is being attended by more than 5,000 delegates from over 185 countries.