NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has sanctioned Central assistance for conservation of 165 wetlands across the country, including 42 Ramsar sites, based on the proposals received from the state governments/ union territories.
This was stated by Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ashwini Kumar Choubey in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
He informed that MoEF&CC has constituted wetlands authorities in States/UTs through Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules 2017 for notification, conservation and management of wetlands.
The Ministry is currently implementing a centrally sponsored scheme namely, National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Eco-systems (NPCA) for conservation and management of identified wetlands (includes lakes) in the country on cost sharing basis between Central Government and respective State Governments / Union Territories. The Ministry has launched Mission Sahbhagita, on the occasion of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, which is an important step towards participatory conservation and wise use of wetlands to enable a society ownership approach with communities leading at the forefront. The Ministry has also launched ‘Save Wetlands Campaign’.
Further, the Ministry has launched “Wetlands of India Portal” (indianwetlands.in), a publicly available information and knowledge platform, in order to facilitate knowledge sharing, information dissemination, host capacity building material, and provide a single-point access data repository with the features of Management Information System (MIS) login for each and every state/UT for uploading of information from time to time.
