Upgrading India’s Biosecurity in the Age of Biotechnology

Why India's Biosecurity Framework Is Stretched Thin in 2025

17 December 2025 should have sparked serious introspection within India’s biosecurity architecture. News of Ricin — a highly potent toxin derived from castor beans — being prepared for potential use in terrorist activity reaffirms an uncomfortable reality: India remains alarmingly vulnerable to biological threats, both deliberate and accidental. With biotechnology evolving rapidly, the existing safeguards are not keeping pace. This mismatch could become catastrophic.

The recent incident underscores not only the misuse of dual-use technologies by non-state actors but also India’s persistent inability to create an integrated biosecurity policy. Ricin's cheap production and lethality — fatal even in microgram quantities — exemplify the dangers of low-cost, high-impact bioweapons that exploit regulatory gaps.

India's Fragmented Biosecurity Framework

At present, India’s biosecurity policies and institutions function in silos. Four key agencies govern aspects of biosecurity:

• Department of Biotechnology (DBT): Responsible for lab safety and regulating genetically modified organisms under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
• National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC): Oversees human disease surveillance and outbreak response mechanisms.
• Department of Animal Husbandry: Focuses on livestock protection and transboundary diseases to prevent agro-terrorism.
• Plant Quarantine Organisation: Monitors and controls agricultural imports to regulate biosecurity risks in plant ecosystems.

In theory, our legal framework is solid. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, 2005, criminalises bioweapons outright, and the Biosafety Rules, 1989, coupled with updated 2017 guidelines, define containment procedures for recombinant DNA technologies. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) also issued bio-disaster management guidelines as early as 2008.

Yet, the real weakness lies elsewhere: coordination gaps. These agencies often work in isolation, without a centralised biosecurity authority to ensure harmonised responses during emergencies or pre-emptive actions against misuse. While the NDMA’s guidelines exist, they often retreat into obscurity between crises, with negligible focus on proactive threat mitigation. No institution currently owns accountability for international collaborations, advanced biosurveillance technologies, or managing dual-use risks specific to synthetic biology.

The Dual-Use Dilemma: Regulation Lags Behind Research

India’s biotechnology research ecosystem is burgeoning, supported by public institutions and private industry. Estimates suggest nearly ₹20,000 crore was allocated to biotechnology initiatives between 2019–2024, signalling robust investment. Yet, dual-use research — where civilian applications (e.g., gene-editing) can be repurposed for military or destructive uses — remains perilously underregulated.

Consider synthetic biology, an area where India is striving to lead. While recombinant DNA guidelines exist, they date back decades and address risks largely through containment protocols for physical labs. What they miss is regulating advanced techniques for genome editing and their potential misuse via machine learning algorithms or automated platforms. Policymakers, despite framing synthetic biology as a national priority in the DBT, haven’t overhauled legal standards. The result? A regulatory vacuum that non-state actors could exploit.

The irony here is glaring—increased funding for innovation has not been matched by improvements in oversight mechanisms or bio-forensic capacity.

What India Can Learn From the United States

The contrast with the United States could not be sharper. In 2022, the Biden administration unveiled its National Biodefense Strategy, integrating roles across health agencies, Department of Defense, and intelligence entities. This strategy actively prioritises microbial forensics and genomic surveillance, allocating $1 billion in annual funding for early-warning systems. Moreover, it reduces duplication by embedding biosecurity across homeland security and military frameworks.

India’s disparate approach—where DBT and NCDC barely interface—is a systemic failure in comparison. Even the $500 crore allocated under India’s Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) doesn’t earmark funds for bio-forensic tools or inter-agency simulation drills for biological disaster preparedness. Without focused financial resources or legal accountability for integrated action plans, India’s biosecurity threatens to remain reactive, not preventative.

Structural Blind Spots in India’s Biosecurity Outlook

Several structural frictions undermine India’s ability to create a robust biosecurity regime:

• Centre-State Disjunction: Agricultural biosecurity falls under State jurisdiction, yet there’s minimal alignment with central agencies like DBT or NCDC to regulate livestock or crop threats at borders.
• Budgetary Constraints: Despite NDMA’s recommendations, funds for biosecurity within disaster management cells remain woefully inadequate—barely 3% of NDMA’s annual allocation has been diverted to biological disasters since 2020.
• Delays in Genomic Surveillance: Tools like genomic sequencing can ensure quicker pathogen identification but occur sporadically. The decline in sequencing post-COVID-19 despite a ₹10,000 crore health infrastructure boost reveals misplaced resource prioritisation.

The larger risk lies in policy stagnation. Although India’s accession to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) ensures international compliance, this hasn’t translated into aggressive domestic reforms akin to China’s Biosecurity Law (2021), which tightly regulates genetic transfers and research transparency as national security metrics.

The Road Ahead: What Success Demands

A comprehensive biosecurity roadmap for India demands two fundamental shifts. First, a National Biosecurity Authority must be established—not simply to coordinate agencies but to systematically fund, oversee, and enforce biosecurity protocols. The authority should explicitly address dual-use research and mandate stringent measures under an updated Biosafety Act.

Second, India must heavily invest in genomic surveillance and microbial forensic capacities. Without cutting-edge diagnostics, early-stage biological threats—or their misuse—will remain undetected until disaster strikes. Success metrics should include numbers of biosafety simulations conducted, integration depth across Centre and State responses, and reduction in response time between pathogen detection and containment.

Whether India can rise to the challenge is uncertain. A decentralised approach without accountability, clear budget injections, and legal oversight will only ensure more headlines like Ricin—a predicted threat, an insufficient response.

UPSC Integration: Exam Questions

Prelims Question 1: Which of the following instruments governs India’s framework on genetically modified organisms?

• a) Biosafety Rules, 1989
• b) Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, 2005
• c) Environmental Protection Act, 1986 ✅
• d) Biological Weapons Convention

Prelims Question 2: The Australia Group focuses on the export control of:

• a) Weapons of Mass Destruction
• b) Conventional Arms
• c) Dual-use chemical and biological materials ✅
• d) Nuclear technology

Mains Question: Assess the structural limitations of India’s biosecurity framework in regulating dual-use research amidst rapid advances in biotechnology and geopolitical risks.

Practice Questions for UPSC

Prelims Practice Questions

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