STATES
ASKED TO PREPARE ENVIRONMENT REPORTS
RS.
6 CRORE PROJECT LAUNCHED TODAY
To further mainstream
the environmental concerns, the Ministry of Environment and Forests
today launched a Rs.6 crore project for preparation of State of
the Environment Reports by all the States and Union Territories.
This project is aimed at enabling the states to prepare such reports
in a scientific and participatory manner. The Ministry today signed
Memorandum of Understanding with four institutions which will
act as facilitators and help the states in scientific data collection
and management of data bases, trend analysis, preparation of reports
and action plans. All the States and Union Territories have been
asked to take up environment reporting exercise in right earnest.
The national host institutions are : Tata Energy Research Institute,
Development Alternatives, both Delhi based and the Hyderabad based
Administrative Staff College of India and Environment Protection,
Training and Research Institute.
The primary goal of
the reporting exercise is to design and operationalise a participatory
and scientifically rigorous state of environment reporting system
in India that enables informed debate, policy formulation, decision
making and follow up action.
State
of Environment Reporting by the States will emphasise more on
the process of reporting in consultation with all the stakeholders
than on the production of statistical documents. It will focus
on the state of bio-physical and socio-economic conditions, an
understanding of how human activities affect the environmental
conditions and their implications on human health and economic
well being. Through this project, the Central Government desires
to streamline and systematise the state of environment reporting
system in the country.
The reports will regularly
provide the public, government, NGOs and decision makers with
accurate, timely and accessible information on the condition of
and future prospect of environment in the states. They will also
report on the effectiveness of policies and programmes that are
designed to respond to environmental changes including progress
towards achieving environmental standards and targets.
This reporting exercise
will result in two kinds of State of Environment Products. These
include static products like Reports, Atlases, Photo Catalogues,
and Video Films besides interactive products like CDs and websites.
A day-long Inception
Workshop on State Level State of Environment Products in India
was organised in New Delhi today. Representatives of seven state
governments which are members of the National Steering Committee,
National Host Institutions, ENEP, World Bank, and senior officials
of the Ministry of Environment and Forests participated in the
workshop.
