law: The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001
  8. General functions
  
  of Authority.-
  1.  It
  
  shall be the duty of the Authority to promote, by such measures as it thinks
  
  fit, the encouragement for the development of new varieties of plants and to
  
  protect the rights of the farmers and breeders.
  2.  In
  
  particular, and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing
  
  provisions, the measures referred to in sub-section (1) may provide for-
  a.   the registration of
  
  extant varieties subject to such terms and conditions and in the manner as may
  
  be prescribed;
  b.   developing
  
  characterisation and documentation of varieties registered under this Act;
  c.   documentation,
  
  indexing and cataloguing of farmers' varieties;
  d.   compulsory
  
  cataloguing facilities for all varieties of plants;
  e.   ensuring that seeds
  
  of the varieties registered under this Act are available to the farmers and
  
  providing for compulsory licensing of such varieties if the breeder of such
  
  varieties or any other person entitled to produce such variety under this Act
  
  goes not arrange for production and sale of seed in the manner as may be
  
  prescribed;
  f.   collecting statistics
  
  with regard to plant varieties, including the contribution of any person at any
  
  time in the evolution or development of any plant variety, in India or in any
  
  other country, for compilation and publication;
  g.   ensuring the
  
  maintenance of the Register.