Express News Service
NEW DELHI: A plan has been brought under consideration for conservation and sustainable management of Bihar’s floodplain wetlands to utilise its eco potential for both climatic benefits and other subsidiary usages.
Bihar’s principal secretary of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Department Dipak Kumar Singh recently in New Delhi presenting a proposal for conserving and sustainably managing Gangetic floodplain wetlands outlined its benefits on proper exploration as well conservation.
Attaching the significant components of the project, Singh presented that the project will be wetland “inventory and assessment, management planning, Wetland’s monitoring, and Capacity development and outreach” in its essences of implementation.
Singh added that the project will be 100% centrally funded with an estimated cost of Rs. 2.505 crore. Outlining the proposal, he said that the project aims at creating a knowledge base and capacities for effective management of floodplain wetlands in the 12 Ganga districts in Bihar.
“It will work a wonder to ensure sustained provision of wetlands ecosystem services and securing biodiversity habitats”, he stated in his presentation.
Apart from this, Singh detailed the initiatives taken to conserve Gangetic Dolphins in the Ganges of Bihar by putting the government’s efforts on sensitizing local fishermen for dolphins conservation. Besides him, Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, DG, NMCG, also suggested that collaborating with other stakeholders like CIFRI can be beneficial in achieving the goal of conservation of Dolphins.
While Dr. Ritesh Kumar, Director (Wetlands), International South Asia detailed also on the Wetland Project. Besides all this, revised Detailed Project Report (DPR) for “Development of Ghat and Crematoria at Simariya, Barauni, Bihar” was presented by National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited (NBCC) at the EC meeting.
As an official statement stated, the field survey of the project location had already been done by the NBCC to carry on the works at an estimated project cost of Rs. 11.92 crores in a period of 20 months. Be it known, Bihar’s Simariya is famous also for being the birth-place of Rashtra Kavi Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, besides being a famous Ghat of river Ganges.
Traditionally speaking, this Simariya ghat attracts a sea of devotees to spend their nights in the month of Magh (as per the Hindu calendar) through meditation and observing rituals like fasting and water worship. The 2-day long workshop was held here on “Remote & Image Processing &a role in River Information management system”, in which 18 officials from Bihar and UP beside others participated.