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| Ramesh moots coastal zone plan with WB funds |
| Devjyot Ghoshal / Kolkata/ Sunderbans Jan 15, 2010, 00:54 IST |
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The Ministry of Environment will implement an Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme, which will be funded by the World Bank, over the next 5 years in coastal areas of West Bengal, Orissa and Gujarat. Of the $200million fund, West Bengal will get $50 million for the Sunderbans.
"This is our big flagship programme which is likely to start in June 2010. I have already met World Bank president twice. This will look at protecting coastal environment in a holistic manner,'' said Jairam Ramesh, the Union minister for environment and forest. He said with regard to the Sunderbans, his ministry lacked an integrated focus and he was considering to appoint a single official who would be responsible for various ongoing programmes in the Sunderbans.
The minister also felt the need for an Indo-Bangla Sunderbans eco-system initiative which would allow both the countries, who share the world's largest mangrove forest, to interact and implement projects together. While admitting that there was a lot to learn from Bangladesh, he said,"I have spoken to the ministry of external affairs. I want to set up a Sunderbans eco-system forum sometime in March. Initially, it will be a consultative one for exchanging views. Over time, we could think of joint projects such as tiger estimation."
Ramesh said that he would be planning for an alternative livelihood for two lakh inhabitants who live on the fringes of Sunderbans and are dependent on the forest. For this, he said a corpus of Rs 2 crore would be set up for the creation and augmentation of rain water harvesting infrastructure thereby increasing the livelihood of people being able to produce two crops a year as against one at present.
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