Five-day prog. on climate change underway in Imphal

Our Correspondent
Imphal, Nov. 13 (EMN): Manipur Chief Secretary Rajani Ranjan Rashmi has expressed the need to conserve the dying water sources of the state besides harvesting the rainwater in order to have water security as part of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in the regional level.
Rashmi was sharing his thought on such activities during the interaction session of the 5-day training programme on climate change adaptation for natural resources management at Diocesan social service society, Mantripukhuri in Imphal on Monday.
The training programme for professionals in diverse fields including the local NGO workers from across the state is being jointly organised by Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and Manipur forest department.
“We are careless about our water resources. Most of the time we discuss some others in taking up water supply programs,” says Rashmi who is also the former special secretary in the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change. “We should protect our water resources by sustaining the river streams, by building check dams in the upstream etc.”
Stating that the use of bottled water (in most of the gatherings in the state) is an alarming situation, he informed that most of the streams are drying up in the state. Manipur has enough rainfall even though it changes its pattern.
So time has come for the forest department to collaborate with the water resources department to conserve water resources of the state besides taking up initiative for rainwater harvest initiatives, opined Rashmi, the then government of India’s chief negotiator for environment treaties relating to climate change and ozone depleting substances
He also informed the gathering that Imphal and its periphery areas gets only about 80 million litres of potable water from around 20 water supply plants against the requirement of at least 120 million litres of water.
It seems the state chief secretary also wants to have some policies for the conservation of the water resources in the state including that of the wetlands as part of taking up climate change adaptation programmes.
He also wishes to showcase the potential of the state’s forest sector such as bamboo based bio-fuel, wood based industries and medicinal plants during the upcoming two-day NE Business summit which is scheduled to be held from Nov. 21 at Imphal.
Earlier he also informed that the country targets to install solar power of 175,000 MW in the next six years. Currently the country generates only about 6000 MW from solar power. By now we’ve reach about 20,000MW.
Earlier the state’s additional chief secretary Sambhu Singh inaugurated the training programme at the forest department office in Sanjenthong.