Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a clarion call for Viksit Bharat (Developed India) by 2047. He envisages a prosperous Bharat which is in harmony with the latest infrastructure and has job and entrepreneurial opportunities for all citizens to reach their full potential. This will transform the quality of life and allow every citizen to participate in the economy. While presenting the 2024 budget, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman announced that the government was working towards all-pervasive, all-round, and all-inclusive development.
Providing a sustainable environment, nutritious food, green energy, and quality healthcare for all citizens in an affordable manner is essential for achieving Viksit Bharat. Biotechnology, a multi-disciplinary technology, is the cornerstone for achieving these goals as it effectively addresses the multifaceted challenges. In recent times, we have seen its significant achievements in all sectors in the form of rapid development of vaccines, bio-ethanol mixed fuel into the market, biohydrogen production, agriculture with pest resistance plants, and carbon capture by high-performance microbial strains, to name a few. Today, India’s $137 billion Bio-Economy accounts for nearly 4% of our $4 trillion national economy. Due to favourable government policies and enabling ecosystems in the last 10 years, it has leapfrogged from a modest figure of $10 billion in 2014 and is expected to reach $150 billion by 2025 and $300 billion by 2030. This has been fueled by the rapid growth of biotechnology startups, whose numbers have swelled to 6,756 in 2022 from a mere 52 in 2014. The process of startup incorporation has fast-tracked such that, on average, four biotech startups were set up every day in 2022, reaching a total number of 1,391 in the calendar year. This rapid growth has generated more than 35,000 highly skilled employment opportunities. Generous support by the government and industrial investment to the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a not-for-profit section 8, Schedule B Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), in the last 10 years have proved to be a game changer in the biotech startup ecosystem.
The year saw a record-breaking $938.8 million in Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) investments in the biotech industry, with a phenomenal 19% growth over the previous year. As of today, five biotech sectors, namely Bioethanol, Diagnostics, Biotherapeutics, Enzymes (Poultry and Aqua), and Vaccines, each contribute $1 billion monthly to the Bio-Economy, pointing to a biotechnology revolution in the making.
GREEN ENERGY: BIOETHANOL AND BIOHYDROGEN
Bharat has decided to become self-reliant in the energy sector by 2047, and to achieve this, the import bill needs to be lowered by producing clean energy. Bharat is the world’s third largest energy and oil consumer. Green energy production will be the key initiative in achieving India’s target of 60% renewable energy of about 500 GW by 2030, thus substantially reducing imports. Although in 2003, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government launched the Ethanol Blending Policy (EBP), a journey from farm to fuel, significant progress remained elusive till 2014. The National Policy on Biofuels was announced in 2018 to provide thrust to biofuel research and production. The policy allowed the use of sugarcane juice, sugar-containing materials like sugar beet, sweet sorghum, starch-containing materials like corn, cassava, damaged food grains like wheat, broken rice, and rotten potatoes, unfit for human consumption, and surplus food grains (after approval from National Biofuel Coordination Committee) for bioethanol production. This, along with other key impetus from the government and biotechnological advancement, rejuvenated the program, and the ethanol blending percentage increased from 1.53% in 2014 to 10.0% in 2022. Ethanol production capacity has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022 to reach 9.47 trillion liters. The policy led to a saving of about $3 trillion in foreign exchange in 2022-23. This has encouraged the government to advance its plan to bring 20% ethanol mixed fuel into the market from the earlier timeline of 2030 to 2025 and make it 30% by 2029. India also took a leadership position to launch the Global Biofuels Alliance in September 2023. The program also has a significant impact on the environment, with greenhouse gas emissions reduced by about 32 million tons from 2014 to 2022. The farmers are the biggest beneficiaries of the program as they were expeditiously paid about $2 trillion during 2022-23, evolving them from Annadaata to Urjadaata (food producers to energy producers). The next revolution will likely come from using algae, especially marine algae grown in the ocean, for 3G biofuel production.
Hydrogen is a superior fuel as it has a higher calorific value (119.93 megajoules/ kg) than gasoline (44.5 megajoules/kg), and its combustion results in negligible harmful emissions into the atmosphere. However, hydrogen production is environmentally sustainable if produced in an energy-efficient manner, which is only possible using microbes in a biotech industry. Hydrogen obtained through biotechnology is called green hydrogen or biohydrogen, in which no additional CO2 is released into the air during production. In 2023, the government started the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) to position Bharat as a leader in producing, utilizing, and exporting green hydrogen. Agharkar Research Institute, an autonomous institute under DST, developed a microbial consortium for the biodegradation of cellulose- and hemicellulose-rich agricultural residues, such as biomass of paddy, wheat, or maize, without thermo-chemical or enzymatic pretreatment to generate Hydrogen in the first stage and Methane in the second. The methane generated in the process also generates additional hydrogen.
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SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT
In 2021, at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Prime Minister Modi committed Panchamrit (five nectar elements) of Bharat’s climate action which included: (i) reaching 500 GW non-fossil energy capacity by 2030, (ii) 50 percent of its energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030, (iii) Reduction of total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now to 2030, (iv) Reduction of the carbon intensity of the economy by 45 percent by 2030, over 2005 levels and (v)Achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2070. Taking immediate action on it, the Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) Policy Framework was released by the government to promote a circular economy by providing opportunities to convert the captured CO2 to different value-added products like green urea, food, and beverage from application, building materials (concrete and aggregates), chemicals (methanol, ethanol, etc.), polymers (like bio-plastics) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) with vast market opportunities.
Microbial and algae-based CO2 capture technologies are being developed as they are most promising in Bharat’s pursuit of net zero and clean energy transition journey. Microalgae are fast-growing microbes that can entrap 10-50 times more CO2 than terrestrial plants and produce various products such as renewable biofuels, bio-fertilizers, bioactive substances, etc. High-performance strain development is being supported for this purpose. Microalgae are the most efficient at capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. About 55% of CO2 captured from the atmosphere is converted to biomass by natural microalgae. In a successful demonstration of the process, a microalgal facility set up by NALCO at its thermal power plant at Angul, Odisha, achieved a carbon sequestration capacity of 32 tons/ac/year. Genetic engineering approaches are being used to generate new microalgae strains for higher conversion of CO2 to biomass and higher tolerance to CO2.
BIOREMEDIATION
With population growth, urbanization, overexploitation of natural resources, and man-made disasters, the problem of pollution has grown manifold, and there is a need to control it using sustainable means. In the process, plants, bacteria, and other microorganisms are used to eliminate pollutants and contaminants from water, soil, and other environments. The process involves using specialized microbes that eat pollutants like oil, chemicals, and pesticides and produce energy. Not only is waste efficiently handled by bioremediation, it also allows the best use of the product of the process. A long-term goal is to reduce garbage to zero. For bioremediation, either natural microbes are isolated and enriched or genetically modified microbes (GMO) are used.
Bioremediation was pioneered by Prof. Anand Mohan Chakrabarty, who used genetic engineering tools to artificially evolve a bacteria to stably harbour four plasmids and make it a super bacteria, Pseudomonas putida, that could degrade different compounds in the oil. Prof. Chakrabarty’s path-breaking research made him the first person to get a US patent for a genetically modified organism, which the Supreme Court of the USA granted after a legal battle.
Bioremediation was used extensively during the Kumbh Mela in 2019 to keep Ganga clean and to manage waste. Anoxic Bioremediation Technology (ABR) using Persnickety® 713, containing selected anaerobic and facultative microbes, was used to clean Hauz Khas Lake and Kushak drain in New Delhi. It helped reduce the biological oxygen demand (BOD) by more than 70%. In 2021, the bioremediation process was used to successfully restore the water quality of two lakes in Hyderabad, namely Chinna Cheruvu in Neknampur, Yerrakunta in Shaikpet, and Novotel Lake in Kothaguda. Fermentation Technology Research Centre (FTRC), TERI, can produce more than a thousand tons of oil-degrading microbes (Oilzapper) per year to treat accidental oil spills or oily sludge.
BIO-AGRICULTURE
Food for all and increasing farmer income through cash crops and animal products are required for Viksit Bharat. The limitation of arable land and various biotic and abiotic stresses pose a big challenge in increasing agricultural production. Biotechnology has been successful in producing improved crops and animals, which have higher yields and/or are resistant to different stresses, either through traditional crossing or molecular biology approaches. In the future, precision agriculture technologies will incorporate microbiota and optimal physio-chemical parameters. The Vajpayee government introduced the first genetically modified (GM) crop in the form of BtCotton in Bharat in 2002. A toxin-producing gene from Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria was introduced in the cotton plant genome to yield BtCotton, making it immune to various insects. It brought cheers to farmers facing cotton crop destruction by bollworms and helped increase cotton production. In 2022, the cotton crop production was 34.2 million bales, and its contribution to the Bio-Agricultural Bio-Economy is valued at $10.23 billion. In 2022, Bharat exempted transgene-free genome-edited plants, which do not contain new combinations of genetic material (SDN-1) or carry specific nucleotide substitutions (SDN-2), derived from the use of precision genome editing techniques employing site-directed nucleases (SDNs) such as ZFNs, TALENs, CRISPR, and other nucleases with similar functions from the rules governing GE organisms. This is likely to help introduce newer varieties to increase crop production.
Similarly, enzyme production, which has an integral role in Poultry and Aqua (Shrimp) bioindustries, has grown substantially, contributing about $17.6 billion to Bio-Economy. These enzymes produced using recombinant DNA technology enhance feed efficiency, digestion, and overall health in poultry and aqua farming.
Biotechnology has traveled a long distance from the corridors of specialized laboratories and jargon to reach the homes of the common janata of Bharat. Bharat is adopting biotechnology in all spheres of its daily life for greener pastures. We already see biotechnology’s contribution to different areas. It can be said with certainty that biotechnology will be key to rapid and sustainable growth in the next 25 years and will make an unparalleled contribution to achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047.
*The writer is Group Leader, Transcription Regulation Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi. He blogs at www.neelsb.com and can be reached at neelsb@icgeb.res.in
