As stated in Sec. 41(1) of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 every local body has constituted a Biodiversity Management Committee, one of the important statutory agencies of the three tier system in India to function within its area for the purpose of promoting conservation, Sustainable use and documentation of biological diversity including preservation of habitats, conservation of land races, folk varieties and cultivars, domesticated stocks and breeds of animals and microorganisms and chronicling of knowledge relating to biological diversity. The committee is formed at each local body to safeguard the biological resources and related traditional knowledge of its jurisdiction.
A BMC consists of 7 members; out of them at least 2 persons should be the women and at least 1 person should belong to either SC or ST community. The BMC will have one Chairperson (out of its 7 members). The concerned Member of Legislative Assembly and the concerned Member of Parliament would be special invitees to the meetings of the BMC.
The main functions of the said committee include -
In west Bengal all the Local Bodies --- Gram Panchayet, Block / Panchayat Samiti, District/Zilla Parishad and Urban Local bodies (Notified Area authorities, Municipality and Municipal Corporation) --- have BMCs. The Board has facilitated this process.
| Establishment of BMC | |||||
| District/Zilla Parishad | Block / Panchayat Samiti | Gram Panchayet | Urban Local bodies | Total | |
| Total No of Local Bodies | 22 | 342 | 3341 | 125 | 3830 |
| BMC Constituted | 22 | 342 | 3341 | 125 | 3830 |
As per the Section -7 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, accessing bio-resources and associated traditional knowledge of the state of West Bengal requires prior intimation to the West Bengal Biodiversity Board. The intimation to the Board should be given in specified format (Form-I & Form-A) along with requisite Application Fee.