Bihar awaits new action plan on climate change
By Subhash Pathak
The state government may have allocated huge amount for ‘Jal Jivan Haryali’ scheme, however, it is going too slow to frame a comprehensive action plan to deal with the issues of climate change and its devastating impact on natural resources.
[...]
Although a separate cell to deal with climate change issues was set up within the forest and environment department in 2019, its technical wing (a unit of the cell that comprises technical staff, analysts and researchers) is yet to be constituted for want of recruitment of suitable candidates.
[...]
The DFID had submitted the draft action plan by 2019-end to the state government, suggesting various strategies, including plans to strengthen agricultural value chain to ensure handsome return to farmers of their produce, de-siltation strategy of Kosi to enhance water retention capacity, development of agriculture-based industries, productive use of rivers’ silt, promotion of bamboo farming, etc, to help people tide over the climate challenges.
[...]
Climate expert Abhishek Pratap said the state government lacked institutional framework to implement the action plan and empower its machinery to act diligently. “Framing of policies or plans will not help until followed up with action.”
[...]