Agricultural biotechnology is an advanced technology that allows plant breeders to make precise genetic changes to impart beneficial traits to the crop plants we rely on for food and fiber.

For centuries farmers and plant breeders have labored to improve crop plants. Traditional breeding methods include selecting and sowing the seeds from the strongest, most desirable plants to produce the next generation of crops. By selecting and breeding plants with characteristics such as higher yield, resistance to pests and hardiness, early farmers dramatically changed the genetic make-up of crop plants long before the science of genetics was understood. As a result, most of today's crop plants bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors.

The tools of modern biotechnology allow plant breeders to select genes that produce beneficial traits and move them from one organism to another. This process is far more precise and selective than crossbreeding, which involves the transfer of tens of thousands of genes, and provided plant developers with a more detailed knowledge of the changes being made.

The portable plants, RCC digesters and waste to electricity plants which are designed and developed by BIOTECH have been approved by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India. So these types of plants installed in India are eligible for the subsidy from MNRE.

The mandate is as follows:
1) Promote large scale use of Biotechnology.
2) Support R&D and manufacturing in Biology.
3) Responsibility for Autonomous Institutions.
4) Promote University and Industry Interaction.
5) Identify and Set up Centres of Excellence for R&D.
6) Integrated Programme for Human Resource Development.
7) Serve as Nodal Point for specific International Collaborations.
8) Establishment of Infrastructure Facilities to support R&D and production.
9) Evolve Bio Safety Guidelines, manufacture and application of cell based vaccines.
10) Serve as nodal point for the collection and dissemination of information relating to biotechnology.

This technology helps plants for pest resistance, helps plants to tolerate the stressful conditions like low temperature, drought, salt in soil, etc., helps to generate vaccines for the animals to fight against diseases, it is also used to produce pharmaceuticals etc.

The NBM is an industry-academia collaborative mission for accelerating discovery research to early development for biopharmaceuticals innovate in India (I3). The aim of the mission is to enable and nurture an ecosystem for preparing India's technological and product development capabilities in biopharmaceutical to a level that will be globally competitive over the next decade, and transform the health standards of India's population through affordable product development. The department aims to achieve this through development of centres of excellence, strengthening of bio-clusters, creating shared infrastructure for product development, knowledge sharing etc.

To submit one's proposal under the NBM, access the following link with relevant details.