Preserving nature

Uttarakhand bags first place for environment conservation::

The Planning Commission has ranked Uttarakhand at the first place among states for their efforts towards environment conservation, an official said. According to Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Uttarakhand has earned 0.8086 points, while Himachal Pradesh stands at the second place with 0.7308 EPI and Chandigarh follows with 0.7185 EPI, the official said. The Planning Commission has decided that while granting Central assistance to states, weightage would be given for the endeavour towards environment conservation, he said.

Speaking about the achievement, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said he had been asking for green bonus from the Centre for a long time. A considerable area of the state is under forest cover and often development projects suffer as due care needs to be taken to conserve forest wealth, he said. Uttarakhand Principal Chief Conservator of Forests R B S Rawat said the forest cover in the state had shown considerable increase in the past ten years and this recognition by the Planning Commission would motivate the state to take additional steps towards forest conservation. In its study of environment conservation, the Planning Commission focused on five different categories, the first one being of forest conservation in which Uttarakhand bagged the first place among other states. Total forest area, increase in the forest cover between the year 2003 and 2009 and efforts of different state governments towards environment conservation were some of the other indicators used by the commission for rating the states.