Coming soon in Gujarat: Gene bank for wildlife

The environment ministry has accepted the Gujarat government's proposal to set up a gene bank for lions in a bid to protect them from the danger of inbreeding. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 12, 2011, 23:15:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Like humans the wildlife will soon have gene bank with a cloning facility.

The environment ministry has accepted the Gujarat government's proposal to set up a gene bank for lions in a bid to protect them from the danger of inbreeding.

Lions in wild are found only in Gir wildlife sanctuary in Gujarat and state chief minister Narendra Modi had refused to relocate some of the lions to Kuno in Madhya Pradesh on the ground that they were pride of Gujarat.

The proposal to relocate had the ministry's backing as it was felt that having lions only at one wildlife area could lead to deteriorating of their breed and extinction in a longer run. There are over 300 lions in Gir wildlife area.

To overcome such fears, the Gujarat government had proposed setting up wildlife genomics and DNA banking facility for lions from different lineage, different areas and different generation. This will help in having a data bank of different types of lions in Gir and neighbouring areas.

Having a lineage data will help the wildlife experts for evaluating the breeding stress and disease susceptibility, says a Gujarat government proposal. The DNA bank will also have an embryo transfer technology to supplement highly endangered species.

In the later stage, the Gujarat government has planned to install cloning technology that can be used for supplementing highly endangered population. Animal cloning in India has been restricted to poultry animals.

Gujarat's gene bank will be unique in India, which has world's largest gene bank for seeds. Around the world there are a few gene banks for the wildlife. They include Ambrose Monell Cyro Collection, New York, the Animal Gene Storage Resource Centre of Australia, Conservation Genome Resource Bank for Korean Wildlife, National Plant, Fungi, Animal DNA Bank, Poland and Wildlife Genetic Resources Bank, Malaysia.

The Gujarat government has sought funds from the Central government for setting up the facility. "We have agreed to the gene bank and has asked Planning Commission to provide requisite funds," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said.

The estimated cost of the project is Rs 67 crore and the state government is exploring possibility of finding a private partner to partially fund the project, ministry officials said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.