The Chief Minister's Office of Odisha announced on Saturday, 4 July 2026 that the Centre for Wildlife Health at the College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), Bhubaneswar, has become the first laboratory in India to receive NABL Accreditation (ISO/IEC 17025:2017) for wildlife forensics and veterinary testing — a milestone credited to the leadership of Chief Minister Shri Mohan Charan Majhi.

Context

The accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) — an autonomous body under India's Department of Science and Technology — certifies that the Centre for Wildlife Health meets the globally recognised ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard for laboratory competence. No other laboratory in the country had previously received this certification specifically for wildlife forensics and veterinary testing, making OUAT's achievement a national first. The CMO described it as 'a proud moment for Odisha,' stating it 'strengthens Odisha's capacity in wildlife health surveillance, disease diagnostics and forensic support.'

Policy Backdrop

The accreditation sits within a long arc of Indian conservation policy. The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 established the legal framework requiring credible scientific and forensic evidence in wildlife crime prosecutions — a standard that has historically been difficult to meet without accredited laboratories. NABL, set up in 1988, has progressively extended its accreditation scope to veterinary and forensic facilities, and India's National Wildlife Action Plan (2017–2031) explicitly prioritised strengthening wildlife health infrastructure and diagnostic networks across states. The Centre for Wildlife Health's new status directly answers that national mandate.

Eastern Indian states with significant elephant and tiger habitats have been at the forefront of forensic capacity building, recognising that habitat protection alone is insufficient without robust evidence chains for prosecuting wildlife crime. An accredited laboratory can produce findings that withstand judicial scrutiny, improving conviction rates under the Wildlife Protection Act.

Stakeholders and Impact

The immediate beneficiaries include the Odisha Forest Department, wildlife enforcement officers, and veterinary scientists who will now have access to forensic test results carrying internationally recognised credibility. Wildlife researchers studying disease transmission — particularly in species such as elephants and tigers that move across Odisha's forest corridors — will gain a reliable diagnostic partner. For forest enforcement agencies, accredited forensic evidence can be decisive in court proceedings against poaching and illegal wildlife trade networks.

The development also signals a shift in how Indian states approach conservation governance: from primarily habitat-centric measures toward evidence-based, science-led frameworks that integrate health surveillance with law enforcement. The Odisha Forest Department and OUAT are tagged as institutional partners in the CMO's announcement, underlining the inter-agency character of the achievement.

What's Next

Conservationists and policy observers will watch whether other states — particularly those with high wildlife crime incidence or significant forest cover — move to establish similarly accredited laboratories, potentially linking them with the national Wildlife Crime Control Bureau database. For Odisha, the next step is likely to expand the operational capacity of the Centre for Wildlife Health and integrate its diagnostic outputs into real-time disease surveillance networks. The accreditation also positions OUAT as a potential national reference laboratory for wildlife forensics, which could attract central government funding and collaborative research mandates.