|
Minutes of the second meeting of the re-constituted
ENVIS Advisory Committee meeting held on 18th September, 2002.
The second meeting of the re-constituted ENVIS Advisory Committee meeting chaired' by Secretary (E&F) was held on 18th September, 2002 in the Ministry in
Room No. 403 at 1500 hrs. List of officials / representatives
who attended the meeting is at Appendix-1.
Welcoming the members after an introduction,
Secretary (E&F) stressed the need to hold the ENVIS Advisory
Committee meeting every year and asked the Senior Advisor to
brief the members about the present status of ENVIS network.
Shri Harjit Singh, Senior Advisor then
made a presentation of the activities and status of the ENVIS
Centres and ENVIS -Nodes and highlighted the important features
of the Ministry's Web Sites - www.envfor.nic.in and http://sdnp.delhi.nic.in. being maintained by the ENVIS Secretariat. He said that the Sdnp site is a gateway to sustainable development initiative and both the sites were regularly updated and were storehouses of information including the following:
Status of Impact Assessment and Forest clearances,
Text of Parliament questions,
Legislation notified by the Ministry including
draft rules and regulations notified for comments,
International Conventions along with
linkage to the convention site,
Activities of the various Divisions of the Ministry,
Successful Case studies, Detailed information on 26
Thematic areas, giving links to libraries, databases, books & articles, important
organisations - national & international links, list servers etc. for each of them.
Details on WORLD SUMMIT
Linkages to some important libraries of the world
Links to important websites on sustainable development
Secretary (E&F) was of the view that Rotterdam Convention
on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for certain hazardous chemicals in international
trade and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) Convention be also included in the list of Conventions
indicating that India is yet to sign and ratify the same.
(Action:- ENVIS Secretariat)
Additional Secretary, (E&F) than apprised the members, of the setting up of
54 ENVIS Nodes from January 2002 under the World Bank scheme and the aim to set up 90 such ENVIS
nodes under the project before the close of the current year. Detailing the aspects of the scheme,
she informed the members that of the 90 ENVIS Nodes 35 would be State Govt.- Nodes, of which 19 have
already been up, 23 out of the 25 ENVIS Centres are already functioning as ENVIS Nodes and the
remaining 12 are NGO's and Institutions specialised in various subject areas on Environment. Search
for this purpose, she said, was on for locating premier institutions and areas not already covered.
She desired that IISc, Bangalore and CAZRI, Jodhpur should review their stand on setting up of
ENVIS - Nodes.
She than highlighted various policy and institutional issues needing immediate,
co-ordinated and concerted efforts by the ENVIS Centre:-
Dissemination Of Information both Inter and Intra
Centres and their contributions to the "Enviro News"
Periodic review of performance both by internal
and external experts,
Compilation of user comments,
Ensuring and maintaining of quality of bulletins
and publications,
(Action:- ENVIS Centres)
Agenda items were than taken up. The minutes of the last meeting held on 4th August,
2002 were confirmed.
Senior Advisor then informed the members that follow up actions on all the
recommendations made in the last meeting had already been taken and details of which were given in the
appendix 1 of Agenda Notes circulated to all the members.
Senior Advisor also informed the members that 3 New proposals for setting up of
ENVIS Centres had been received, details of which are as follows:
1) Bio-informatics Centre for Medicinal plants, Chennai, on medicinal plants
2) Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, on the
Subject Area: Environment media & Communication , and
3) International Society of Environmental Botanist (ISEB), Lucknow, on the
Subject Area : Plant & Pollution.
It was decided that the 3 proposals be referred to the Monitoring Committee of
the ENVIS - EMCBTAP for consideration for setting up ENVIS Nodes.
(Action:- El Division)
Referring to the recommendations of Geetha Krishnan Committee that no more
ENVIS Centres be established, the Secretary (E&F) observed that in view of
the expanding gamut of information in the field of Environment it is imperative to consider broad
basing the scheme to cover emerging areas where database have to be built up for facilitation of
decision making process.
Prof. P.B. Mangla of Delhi University, while appreciating the progress made
so far by ENVIS, suggested that in addition to holding yearly meetings of the ENVIS Advisory Committee,
technical committees be constituted which could year, visit Centres and review progress. The suggestion
was accepted and it was decided to constitute ENVIS Technical committee to review both ENVIS Centres and
ENVIS Nodes.
(Action:- El Division)
Prof. P.B. Mangla and Dr A. Lahiri, Advisor, NSSAT / DSIR further mentioned that
the existence of ENVIS information network is not widely known to various usergroups like the universities
and requested the ENVIS to give wider publicity in both print and electronic media so that the user
community are benefited from such services. A number of suggestions for creation of a mechanism for
publicity through Video's, DVD's, News papers, TV programs were made. The Centres were also asked to give
wider publicity to the ENVIS and activities of the ENVIS Centres, it was felt that putting up advertisements
in Airports and such other public places be also explored. NIC could also be asked to help in this regard.
Appropriate strategies are initiated in this matter.
(Action:- ENVIS Centres, El Division, NIC)
Presentations by ENVIS Centres, on their Activities, progress made during 2001-2002
and future plans, were then taken up in the following order:
1. Centre for Advanced Studies in Marine Biology (CAS MB), Annamalai University,
2. Development Alternatives (DA), New Delhi,
3. National Environmental Engineering Research lnstt. (NEERI) Nehru Marg, Nagpur,
4. School of Planning and Architecture, (SPA) Indraprastha Estate, New Delhi,
5. Bombay Natural History Wetlands Society (BNHS), Mumbai,
6. Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC), Lucknow,
7. Centre for Environmental Studies (CES), College of Engineering,
Anna University (CES, AU), Chennai,
8. Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), New Delhi,
9. Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES, IISc), Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore,
10. Centre of Mining Environment (CIVIE), Indian Schools of Mines,
Dhanbad,
11. Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun,
12. World Wide Fund for Nature- India (WWF), New Delhi,
13. School of Environmental Sciences (SES, JNU),
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
14. Centre for Environment Education (CEE) - Nehru
Foundation for Development, Ahmedabad,
15. Environmental Protection Training And Research
Institute (EPTRI), Hyderabad,
16. Centre for Media Studies (CMS), New Delhi,
17. National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH),
18. Indian Environmental Society (IES), Delhi,
19. State Council of Science and Technology for Sikkim
(SCST, Sikkim), Gangtok.
Keeping in view the possibility of review of the activities
of the institutions under the Ministry, presentations of the following institutions
were deferred:
1. Zoological Survey of India (ZS1), Kolkata;
2. G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment & Development
(GBPIHED), Kosi-Katarmal (UP);
3. Botanical Survey of India (BSI), Kolkata;
4. Central Arid Zone Research institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur;
5. Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun , and
6. Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi.
Availability of the following resources with ENVIS Centres
emerged during the presentations:
1. Information on 12 Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP's)
and Material Safety Data-sheet (MSDS) on 20 chemicals with Industrial Toxicology
Research Centre (ITRC), Lucknow,
2. A database consisting of abstracts on Bio-degradation
of Waste with Centre for Environmental Studies (CES), Chennai.
3. A select bibliography on Solid waste management in India
with Tata Energy Research institute, (TERI)
4. Clean - India interactive CD on drinking water quality with
Development Alternatives.
5. A CD on "Florican birds of India " available with Bombay
Natural History Wetlands Society (BNHS).
6. NGO directory with World Wide Fund for Nature- India (WWF).
7. Bibliography and status report on Coral Reefs and Indian Lagoons
with Centre for Advanced Studies in Marine Biology (CASMB).
8. Bibliography and State of art report on Estuaries, mangroves
with Centre for Advanced Studies in Marine Biology (CASMB), Annamalai.
9. Status Report on Hazardous waste management in India with
National Environmental Engineering Research Institute. ( NEERI), Nagpur.
10. Bibliographic data base on Himalayas with G.B. Pant Institute
of Himalayan Environment & Development (GBPIHED).
11. Index of papers on Wetlands in Journal of the Bombay Natural
History society with BNHS.
12. Annotated bibliography on Prosopis juliflora, with FRI, Dehradun.
The following suggestions were made after the presentations which were
accepted:-
1. Quality of databases and publications of ENVIS Centres and Nodes
be evaluated by experts,
2. ENVIS Centres and Nodes concentrate on areas assigned,
3. Activities of Development Alternatives, National Environmental Engineering
Research Institute (NEERI), School of Planning and Architecture(SPA), Indian Environmental Society
(IES) and Centre for Environment Education (CEE) ENVIS Centres & ENVIS Nodes (CEE-Bio-medical waste )
are not satisfactory and a thorough scrutiny and evaluation of their work is required to be undertaken
urgently. IES in particular be asked to give a detailed plan of action for next three months besides
having discussion with AS(SC) and Sr. Adviser(H) about activities of their centre.
4. BNHS consult "Association of Indian Universities " to update the Directory
of Ph.D thesis on birds.
5. A separate Domain for ENVIS be created to accord a separate identity,
6. An ENVIS user- workshop be organised,
Additional Secretary in her closing remarks summarised the deliberations and summed
up the decisions as under:-
1. Critical examination of the functional profile of the ENVIS Centres and
Nodes, also to avoid overlaps between Centres and Nodes,
2. Constitution of technical Committees for in depth review of ENVIS Centres
and Nodes,
3. Setting up of an in built mechanism for Evaluation of ENVIS Centres every 2 years,
4. Purport guidelines for peer review of databases and publications brought out by Centres,
5. Sharing of databases and information among Centres and nodes on a regular basis,
The meeting ended with a vote of thanks to the chair.
Appendix-I
List of Participants (ENVIS Advisory Committee Meeting)
|
