Invitation of Public Comments on First Bioeconomy Policy of Odisha
Bioeconomy, the emerging frontier of sustainable development :
Bioeconomy has emerged as a transformative approach to sustainable economic growth, integrating biotechnology and biological resources to drive innovation, industrial development, employment generation while protecting environment . The growing acceptance of the importance of bioeconomy in Indian context can be understood from two different perspectives; a) multiple policy initiatives undertaken by different governments and b) also from the rapid growth in bioeconomy. To provide impetus to the development of bioeconomy, government of India unveiled BioE3 Policy (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment) and released annual Bioeconomy Reports capturing industry movement, important statistics and key initiatives. The positive impact of these policies can be understood by the fact that India’s bioeconomy has achieved extraordinary transformation, growing 16.6 times over a decade, from US$10 billion in 2014 to US$165.7 billion in 2024, maintaining a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.9%. This expansion has positioned India among the Top 5 global bioeconomies in the world. In 2024, bioeconomic activities contributed 4.25% of India’s GDP (gross domestic product) of US$3.89 trillion. India wants to increase the size of the bioeconomy to US$300 billion target by 2030, requiring an average yearly 10% growth rate.
The recent reports and academic literature have classified bioeconomy into five sectors; bioIndustrial; bioAgri; bioPharma, bioIT and bioMarine. But like other sectors of India economy, the growth of bioeconomy is uneven across states. We can see that the southern and western regions drive India’s bioeconomy growth. In the eastern region, the states like Odisha have immense potential due to unique biodiversity, long coastline and state government’s focus on increasing sustaianable economic activity in state in recent years. The Science and Technolody department, Government of Odisha has recently entrusted IIM Sambalpur to develop its first bioeconomic report that would provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of the bioeconomy, explore opportunities for its sustainable growth, and assess its potential impact on various sectors. In view of the above, the comments from public on the above mentioned initiative is invited in the prescribed proforma Form-A (copy enclosed) and may be sent to the bioeconomy_cell@iimsambalpur.ac.in. The comments, suggestions can be related to technical, ecological, social or business oriented or may highlight best practices or challenges faced.