A committee set up under the principal secretary to the prime minister is trying to streamline all the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).
The eight missions under the NAPCC include the national solar mission, the national mission for enhanced energy efficiency, national mission on sustainable habitat, national water mission, national mission for sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem, national mission for a green India, national mission for sustainable agriculture, and national mission on strategic knowledge for climate change.
The committee headed by Pulok Chatterjee, principal secretary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will meet in January, said a senior environment ministry official. The panel’s terms of reference include reviewing the missions and trying to work out a synergy between them.
Ministries dealing with the environment, water resources, urban development, agriculture, power, and new and renewable energy are the nodal agencies for the missions.
“We will be monitoring the progress of all the missions on a quarterly basis and bring out all the key action points for all of them,” said the official quoted above on condition of anonymity.
The NAPCC, prepared in 2008, was intended to serve as a road map on how India plans to combat climate change, uniting it with the country’s development concerns and the need to sustain economic growth.
Because multiple ministries and agencies are involved in the planning and implementation of these missions, it is important for them to have a common format on the basis of which the progress of the missions can be reported and reviewed, said the official cited above.
“The members of the committee include the secretaries of all these ministries in addition to representatives from the Planning Commission and the finance ministry,” the official said.
The official said that it was important for all the missions to have short-term goals on a quarterly basis. “They have to list their top priorities. We have told them to achieve the maximum of their goals in the next 2-3 years. There will be a final review in 2017 for all of them,” the official said.
The committee has advised all the ministries to synergize the missions with the existing schemes. “We have told green India mission to sync with Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA),” the official cited above said.
Under the sustainable habitat mission, the urban development ministry has plans to construct metro trains in some cities. “They are also improving solid waste management and have issued advisories on energy efficient buildings,” the official said.
Bureau of energy efficiency (BEE) under the power ministry is the nodal agency for implementing the national mission on energy efficiency. Ajay Mathur, director general, BEE, said that the key is to see what the impact of these missions is.
“Our quantitative reporting will start only September next year as that is when our schemes will start playing out. For this quarterly review, we will only be saying whether our schemes are on track or not,” said Mathur.
Prodipto Ghosh, a member of the Prime Minister’s council on climate change, said the review showed the government’s seriousness in implementing the NAPCC.
“The review will then be presented to the Prime Minister’s council on climate change which is headed by the Prime Minister and he can take stock of it,” said Ghosh.
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