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Uttaranchal
October 2003
Uttaranchal SoE IDFC/AME
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 3
3 Way forward 15
ANNEXURES 21
Annex 3 List of Participants during the Launch Workshop, 26th July, 2003 27
1 Introduction
In India, State of the Environment Reporting was brought to significance with the
series of Citizens’ Report on State of India’s Environment, produced by Centre for
Science and Environment. These reports prepared from the perspective of Civil
society and the public interest, generated much common interest in a range of
issues.
Worldover, a State of the Environment Report often forms an integral part of the
approach to sustainable development. It is an effective step in the development of
relevant policy. Principles that drive the SOE include:
• Promotion of the sustainable use of natural and physical resources and the
maintenance of ecological processes and genetic diversity
• Encourage public involvement in resource management and planning
• Facilitation of economic development in accordance with the objectives set
out above
• Promotion of the sharing of responsibility for resource management and
planning between the different spheres of government, the community and
industry in the State
In the context of Uttaranchal, the SOE is seen as a first step in the development of
an Environment Policy and Strategy for the state to foster sustainable
development. For a first time report, it would essentially serve to capture the
priority areas. Subsequently the frameworks would be put in place to allow for
updates. The diagram below shows the entire process of developing
environmental policies and frameworks, of which understanding the state of
environment is the first step.
Since the formation of the State, while there has been a strong focus on
jumpstarting the economy through infrastructure and economic development,
there has also been a strong focus on ensuring that the development path adopted
does not compromise the local environment.
With this end in mind, even as strategies for infrastructure development are being
established, the State of Uttaranchal has embarked on a process of preparing its
first ever State of Environment (SoE) Report. This is being carried out under the
ongoing national program mentioned above.
The national program defines the presence of a National Host Institution (NHI)
and State Host Institution (SHI) and for the State of Uttaranchal the NHI is the
Environment Protection Training and Research Institute (EPTRI) based at
Hyderabad. The Government of Uttaranchal nominated the Uttaranchal
Environmental Protection and Pollution Control Board (UEPPCB) as the state
host institution to undertake this effort.
As the State Host Institution, the UEPPCB sought the services of the
Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), which is a national level
To support the diverse nature of work required for such a report, IDFC has teamed
up with the Academy for Mountain Environics(AME) as a local partner. AME has
been working which has been actively working on issues related to Environment,
Development for over a decade in the region and has been in the forefront of
multi-sectoral initiatives.
This inception report provides an overview of the objectives and approach that is
being considered for the SoE development. It is based on preliminary review of
data and consultations with the government as well as state officials.
IDFC has completed the following and these are provided in this report
• Launch meeting and understanding of State Priorities
• Stakeholder Consultations in different regions
• Preliminary information overview and identification of data requirements
• Data collection approach
• Data set requirements
• Nodal government department officers who would need to help put together
the information
SOE documents have so far been criticized for not providing directions for
specific tasks to be performed to improve the conditions. This is a serious
criticism despite all the benefits mentioned of such an effort. The present effort is
envisaged to address this concern.
Since the State has embarked on a positive action is several fronts and is exploring
newer areas conservation and development, the process itself could form an
excellent tool for initiating action.
There are various frameworks that have been developed for SoE preparation and
reporting. The choice of a framework for assessment depends on the range of
issues that need to be addressed. Since this effort is to seek specific and
contextual solutions as well as a global comparability, two frameworks are
presently being considered for adoption for the present study.
For practical purposes, and in particular for the goals described in the Green
Accounting Communication, the PSR model is sufficient. However, for
compatibility reasons (e.g. to the DSR model), and for a better description of
underlying economic trends, the indicator community has formulated the Driving
force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response model, which includes P-S-R as special
cases.
The DPSIR framework takes into account the driving forces, pressures, state,
impacts and responses. It includes identification of the impacts and recognizes
that there are driving forces, which are the underlying human activities, that exert
pressure on the environment with adverse effects. This framework is briefly
explained below:
Driving forces
These are the underlying human activities that lead to environmental change.
They may be governmental activities, such as agricultural policies, or energy
subsidies; corporate activities, such as irresponsible disposal of waste or
inefficient use of raw materials; or they may be consumer activities, such as
private vehicle use, or recreational activities.
Pressures
This aspect relates to the pressures that are exerted on the environment and natural
resources and include increased pollution of air, water, and soil; or depletion of
natural resources such as fish stocks and woody biomass.
State
This describes the current state of the various indicators, and where data are
available, shows trends in environmental quality over time.
Impacts
These are the consequences of the pressures on natural resources, such as
reductions in biodiversity, soil degradation and desertification, or sea level rise.
Responses
These cover the current policies and management strategies to combat
environmental degradation, the effectiveness of these policies, and
recommendations for additional activities.
• Identify options that can better achieve core human development and
sustainability goals. All countries and communities are grappling with the
challenge of meeting growing demands for food, clean water, health, and
employment. And decision-makers in the private and public sectors must
also balance economic growth and social development with the need for
environmental conservation. All of these concerns are linked directly or
indirectly to the world’s ecosystems. The MA process, at all scales, will
bring the best science to bear on the needs of decision-makers concerning
these links between ecosystems, human development, and sustainability.
The MA approach also provides a frame that can be adapted for the SoE. The
process recommended by the MA is shown as a schematic below
The primary basis for this frame has been the existing frames such as the DPSIR
framework as well as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment frameworks that
offer theoretical tools for analysis. This aspect is covered in earlier sections.
However a more vital issue is the understanding of the state of Uttaranchal from a
holistic and peoples point of view. This has been proposed through a series of
consultations with the Government agencies, NGOs and CBOs, and academics.
The process followed for the consultations is outlined in the following sub-
sections
2.2.1 The Launch Workshop
The first project was launched with a meeting of the State officials, departments
and agencies on the 26th of July 2003 at Dehradun.
The purpose of the first meet with the state government officers was to highlight
the national process on environmental consciousness initiated by the Ministry of
Environment and Forests, (GoI) in different states and the approach by the
partnering institutions to achieve the environmental goals in forms of State of
Environment documents as the baseline for further follow up. More importantly it
was meant for discussions with the stakeholders on issues to be taken up to reflect
people’s view on environment and strategizing for the same. The sharing of
responsibilities by various stakeholders, which are associated with networks or in
their own capacity, who can extend their participation in the process and the role
of institutions in supporting the program. It was also necessary to know from the
Government of Uttaranchal and State Government representatives about their
vision for the development of the State and specific issues that need to be
addressed and the availability of secondary data with the government departments.
The proceedings of the meeting are provided in Annex 4.
2.2.2 Stakeholder consultations
The civil society stakeholder meeting was held on the 28th July 2003 in the FRDC
Hall of the Secretariat. The proceedings of the stakeholders meeting presented
several overlapping and additional issues. The emphasis was on obtaining a
perspective from the context of people's aspirations, limitations of existing
institutional arrangements and the critical areas demanding rather immediate
attention. The proceedings of the stakeholder consultation are outlined in Annex
6.
The second stakeholder consultation will take place on the 15th & 16th November
2003 in Gairsain. The venue for the consultation will be the meeting hall of the
block panchayat.
Shri Dimri was helpful in giving insight to the role of their department. He
emphasised the importance being given to the formulation of State Water Policy
and means to streamline distribution of water resources in the State. The draft
State Water Policy will be discussed in detail with the development of the
background paper.
Insight about the roles of the newly formed UPN which exclusively looks into the
drinking water and sanitation schemes and Ganga Action Plan for the State. The
regional offices have been informed for getting data at a disaggregated level.
Dr. Bisht explained the geographical setting of Uttaranchal and also provided with
the State of Forest, 2001 containing broad statistics along with a list of
publications available with them. He also extended the library facility to search
for relevant material and especially on cooking fuels used in rural areas of the
state.
The availability of forest cover map for Uttaranchal was explored. The recent map
will be available in a short span and older editions are also available; digital as
well as hard copy.
The geological conditions and site suitability in the context of natural disasters
were discussed in the light of the research undertaken by the institute. A brief was
given on the awareness generation during earthquakes and assured of future
support in the process of SOE.
The efforts in organic farming in the state were briefed and the potentials for
Uttaranchal products based on organic farming and need to revive and take along
traditional farming would be the prime focus of the project.
3 Way forward
The geographic framework for such an analysis has been considered critical since
Uttaranchal can be intrinsically understood as a continuum of low land high land
ecosystems of the Himalayas. The low land & high land linkages have been
transforming given the connectivity during the last few decades, but have
evidently raised certain areas of concern.
• Yamuna - Ganga;
• Ganga - Ramganga; and
• Ramganga - Kali Sarda;
• Ethnic groups
• Production systems
• Diverse ecological settings.
This would be developed subsequently along with the thematic maps and collating
data sets generate a good understanding of the low-land high-land linkages. The
map below highlights the suggested geographical delineation
Background documents are being generated on specific themes and concerns and
data sets are being organized to enable assessment at various scales.
Since it is the first report of its kind, it is also important to underline the historical
processes that have shaped the development of themes and an effort is being made
to look at the information and data-sets that could provide time-series information.
Some of the thematic areas identified for developing the background papers are:
Planning and development in the region and how such programmes and policies
have shaped the development of the region in terms of balanced growth and
decentralization of management both in urban and rural contexts. It would also
reflect on the development paradigms and their impacts on the bio-physical and
psycho-cultural environment. It is important that in building up a plan and how
relevantly can the 73rd and 74th CAA can be approached as a tool for decentralised
management & infrastructure development.
Land and People the land resource are diverse and resource enhancement and
depletion have always been concerns of the community. This background paper
would focus on the two interdependent resources and the processes that have
shaped the present day structure.
Industry has drawn its shadow to a limited extent in the state. Whatever the focus
has been on developing green industries has thus far been, it would be
worthwhile analysing the causes for weak industrial development particularly in
the context of the overwhelming notions of the lack of entrepreneurship among
the people. It will also enable design for optimum resource utilisation,
remunerative employment generation, and rapidly introducing cleaner production
mechanisms.
Energy is also one of the promising avenue where harnessing of renewable energy
is already one of the prime objectives of the state. The MoP has a vision to
electrify each and every settlement by the year 2012 and it would be of great
importance to identify pockets for intervention based on river valleys potentially
viable for taking up action. The production of energy is also linked to various
environmental and social dimensions that need appraisal.
Water Resources has been attracting national attention as it supports various life
forms and there is a disparity among the states due to scarcity and lack of
management measures. Since Uttaranchal has water resources serving a huge
population within the state and downstream, the need is to address water resources
comprehensively including quality and quantity of potable water along with
irrigation requirements in both rural and urban settlements is critical. Water
resources assessment, monitoring mechanisms and institutions facilitating the
water supply to the people should be emphasized. It would also be important to
know the traditional practices to manage in their own social settings. Water policy
for the state has not evolved, this would also be important to reflect the
perspectives on issues taken up in the water policy.
Disasters have not been new to Uttaranchal, but the array of disasters have given a
challenge to cope up with natural calamities, which have been occurring more
often than before and with a wide spectrum of damages. The need for developing
information base and identifying pockets at risk to disasters is critical. Developing
policy guidelines and remedies addressing unsafe settlements and therefore
uncertain livelihoods, could initiate and enable mechanisms to address such
issues.
The report will seek to develop the above perspective using the DPSIR and MA
frameworks.
The Structure for the execution of the SoE project is provided in the image below
Further the periodicity and nature of data sets vary from sector to sector as also
sometimes by regions or administrative units. A range of data-sets that are sought
to evolve the SOE, the indicative features that would be of relevance to drawing
inferences and the likely agencies which will are likely to maintain such records.
Scheme for data collection- Indicative Features and Agencies likely to have
generated relevant information are appended in Annexure I. The scale of data
sets that are sought and organized are at:
• State-level
• District Level
• Block Level
• Watershed
• Sub-watershed
In addition to the above, an exhaustive list of data sets has been developed for
information collection and this is too detailed for provision here. A list of the
subjects is provided Annex 8 as a reference. These data sets have already been
provided to concerned State Nodal Officers as well as the other Government
departments for collection and filling in. In addition to this a questionnaire as
provided in Annex Additional information is being collected from Central
Government agencies, Local academics and other sources.
The data collection process is largely dependent on the support the government
departments which have this information as well as the timely provision of the
same. With the involvement of all agencies as indicated in the structure above, it
is expected that the most of the data collection process will be completed over the
next 10-12 weeks providing time for analysis and development of the SoE. It is
however possible that all the data collection may not be complete due to non-
availability. These will be identified early to the UEPPCB as well as the state
nodal officers and flagged for further work. Attempts will also be made to obtain
these prior to the SoE report finalization.
Where there are gaps in data, indicators and other proxies will be used to analyse
the ecological and other parameters.
As the SoE is intended as a practical document, case studies are also being
considered as an important basis for providing insights into the processes and the
potential for various intervention. Discussions have been held with nodal officers
and other stake holder community members to initiate the process of listing
potential case studies. The following case-studies will be considered amongst
others:
While the process has been defined earlier in the proposal and the work order,
various other steps as required will be taken to ensure that there is on going formal
and informal consultation with all stakeholders on the overall relevance of the
analysis and the priorities
The next milestones is the submission of the draft SoE report that is due on 23
weeks from the submission of the Inception Report which would be due around
the first/second week of February 2003.
ANNEXURES
This specific set of questionnaires is prepared and will be discussed with the
concerned officials to bring forward the perspectives and role of their departments
in the development and environment of the State.
Industries
Forest Resources
Urban Development
• How do you see the role of ULBs in managing solid waste and co-operation
with the citizen forums to reduce the problem.
• What has been the main hurdle for reaching any solution to the urban waste.
• What have been the reasons for notifications (supreme court orders) not
being followed in most of the national urban centres?
• Impacts of campaigns to reduce plastic use.
• Have you tried to associate with the active organisations for awareness
generation and working on technologies.
• What is the most problematic issue, which has to be addressed to solve the
problem of SWM.
• How will the government machinery react with the urban growth, especially
hill towns and SWM.
• How would bio-medical waste has to be addressed in the urban context.
Policy initiatives and measures taken.or planned.
• What is the most prominent collection-transportation-disposal cycle.
• Characteristics of waste in urban centres (hills and plains) and technology
application.
Rural Development
• How do you see regional development across the State? Does it require
some input in terms of economic activity? What could be those..
• Progress of 9thplan and views about the 10th plan.
• Panchayati Raj Institutions + 73rd CAA . How to strengthen them. Has state
planned or planning to do the same.
• How do you see impacts of migration and the possible reasons for out
migration? How effectively it can be controlled/minimised.
• Employment scenario under various programmes started by your
department.
• Similarly questionnaires will be prepared for various other departments to
hold discussions for the same.
Annex 3 List of Participants during the Launch Workshop, 26th July, 2003
The launch for State of Environment (SOE) report was called on July 26, 2003 at
the Chief Secretary’s office, Government of Uttaranchal under the Chairmanship
of the Chief Secretary, Mr Madhukar Gupta.
Mr. Gupta in his opening remarks identified the priorities for the State and set the
stage for discussion on Uttaranchal’s sustainable development and other State
priorities. While highlighting the importance of the assignment, Mr. Gupta said
that he saw this assignment as the first systematic attempt to mine and make sense
of existing data and information available with various government departments
and institutions in the form of reports undertaken on various aspects of
Uttaranchal’s state of the environment in the past. He also said that if the even the
process of integrating the work done so far is done in an effective manner then
SOE report will be of great help to GoU.
Mr. Gupta also talked about some of the State priorities, while also highlighting
that it might not be possible for the SOE study to cover all of these aspects in
detail but hoped that the report will cover these issues in some manner based on
existing data and information. The priorities highlighted by Mr. Gupta included:
• Water conservation, water harvesting and water treatment sector policies for
industries and domestic areas he felt were important. He informed that a
task force under Dr. Tolia had looked at watershed management. The report
of the task force, he felt, would be of use for the SOE
• The need for identification of type of industries possible given the resource
base of Uttaranchal and existing regulations. He informed that focus could
be on non polluting industries and that the government has already
identified IT, Tourism and horti-processing as some of the key industries.
• Disasters are an important aspect of the fragile State and felt that broad
identification of disaster prone areas based on substantial amount of work
already done by Uttaranchal.
Concluding his remarks, Mr. Gupta said that the report should look at
environment as a constructive process linked with the lives of people and
economy of Uttaranchal.
The opening address by the Chief Secretary was followed by a presentation from
Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) on the broad approach that
would be followed for the entire SOE report.
It was agreed that the report would be based on the secondary information
collected from various agencies and department. The report could not get on to
primary data collection as both time and resources are short.
The State in the past has initiated efforts for incorporating sustainable
development aspects in the projects. It was pointed that the SoE report should
highlight these efforts of the State.
Number of sectors and issues were highlighted including agriculture and agro
forestry related issues, landslide management, debris management, tourism, etc. as
There was some discussion on small vs big projects and the fact that is no definite
methodology and clarity to justify either the small or large hydro projects in the
state was made.
It was pointed out that a subset of the SOE report could focus on Doon valley.
The Chief Secretary pointed out that Doon valley is a protected valley and the
Supreme Court has placed certain restrictions in its ruling. However, UEPPCB
informed the Chief Secretary that UEPPCB is already in touch with MOEF and
that a study has already been commissioned on Doon valley. Based on this, it was
decided that IDFC will integrate the findings of that report into the SOE report. It
was also suggested that environmental hotspots such as Doon valley, Nainital, etc
should be captured in the report based on work initiated by the UEPPCB.
It was suggested that the SOE should list down various restrictions and their
origins as imposed by central government policies, legislation and state
government administration on forest and its resources in the report.
Forest economics and forest hydrology should be included in the report especially
from the point of view of constraints faced by individuals who are dependent on
these resources.
Carbon trading is a potential area for Uttaranchal and State is interested in this.
Influences, direct as well as indirect, on climate issues due to various activities
like vehicular pollution, consumption of petroleum products in the state etc needs
to be looked at in the report.
It was suggested that while working on the state priorities it should be kept in
mind that the physical setting of Uttaranchal is critical to its own development as
well as for maintaining balance at larger scale in the plains.
Finally, SoE should be developed in a way that it could be beneficially utilized for
sustainable development of Uttaranchal by adequately safeguarding the interest of
its people and the environment.
Mr. Sridhar welcomed various participants and informed them about the objective
of the stakeholder workshop. He emphasized that the purpose of the stakeholder
meeting was to get a participatory approach of all the concerned people and
organization in Uttaranchal for developing the state of the environment report. He
said that there had been so many studies in Uttaranchal in the past and challenge
with us today was preparing a report which would be dynamic in nature and
practical in its orientation.
Mr. Sreedhar requested all the participants to be forthcoming in their view points
about the shape and content of SoE for Uttaranchal; on this note he threw open the
session for all participants to express their views one by one.
SoE must have scope for acceptance of local wisdom and knowledge. For greater
information dissemination a concept paper on SoE should be developed and
circulated to enable people to comment and respond on SoE. This might also pave
the way for greater involvement of people and chance to seek the fulfillment of
their aspirations out of SoE report.
SoE must involve a comprehensive secondary data collection exercise and linkage
between resource and livelihood should be one of the key study features of SoE.
In terms of the process one opined that there are many other similar type of
studies in the past and those should be referred to suitably for this study.
Institutional framework and regulatory framework should also be one of the main
focuses of the study. Decentralization is another aspect which should be
highlighted as the need of the hour for the state of Uttaranchal.
is just the opposite. In his opinion there is increasingly greater need to understand
role of Van Panchayats and explore frameworks for their sustainability. General
view of the participants was that unless people are vested with power to make
local policies and programs, decentralization is meaningless; house was further
informed that as per studies done earlier, local governance structures in
Uttaranchal have been weakening since 1985. There is increasing marginalization
of local institutions in the state.
It was suggested that once the SoE report is prepared there should be an agency to
implement and take it forward in next stage at appropriate time and for this job
government will be the best agency and they should be accepting broader role for
themselves.
Conflicting issues like protected areas in Uttaranchal vs. rehabilitation issues etc
should be included in the study parameter of the SoE work. SoE should also focus
on cross-sectoral linkages and policy impacts; it should come out with tools for
sharing cross sectoral information in more proactive manner. Business related to
medicinal plant and ornamental plant can be a potential business and source for
revenue for Uttaranchal. Climate change issue and its relation to revenue
generation potential should be studied in detail.
Linkage between resource and livelihood should form a key component of the
study in Utatranchal as these two issues are closely interrelated. Local artisans and
people living in forest should be well protected against any government policies
which displace them or their work. Changing trends in forestry and migration has
become a hot issue in Uttaranchal. Planting of trees requires involvement of
people and alienation of people is a primary cause of environmental degradation
(Van Panchayat)
Grazing vis-à-vis livelihood option is a very sensitive issue in the state and should
be studied carefully. Natural disaster should also be studied in the context of
development interventions. Land, forest and water policies should be analysed
with respect to their impact on livelihood issues in the state. Construction
activities have strong impact on environment and should be made an important
aspect of the study. Common property resources should be analysed from the
viewpoint of livelihood for local people.
Environment conflict within the state should be covered at length in the report.
There should be a chapter on the origins of various conflicts and their progress
and way forward. It has been seen that most of the conflicts have developed from
wrong development policies. No positive value has been shown by development
in Uttaranchal and on the other hand large-scale negative impacts on environment
are easily visible.
Migration and its threat on local environment is another issue of great concern in
Uttaranchal. About half of the population in Uttaranchal is under migration threat
and it has created large-scale pressure on natural resources due to over
exploitation. Almora and Their areas are some examples.
Land use policy changes have led to more and more commercial cultivation of
agricultural land. This has not only led to marginalization but also degradation in
land quality owing to unsustainable use of land. One infamous example is tea
cultivation on lands which have been traditionally used for other sustainable
agricultural crops. This land is no longer able to sustain on its own and hence
require chemical fertilizer for better yield. Impact of modern agriculture and
farming practice should be analysed vis-à-vis traditional method; use of chemical
fertilizer and its bad impact should be studied.
There should be a study of human health impact owing to pollution and natural
resource depletion in Uttaranchal.
There should be analysis of carrying capacity of the area before any development
activity and potential local impacts should be analyzed where problems are
anticipated and then policy should be made.
Water and river systems should be studied with respect to their value to local
economy. Perception in Uttaranchal is that river resource is being used for welfare
of other states rather than local people.
Market forces are emerging rapidly in Uttaranchal and they need to be managed
and oriented towards sustainable development of Uttaranchal, this could be
achieved by integration of development with livelihood and development. There
should be regulation on compensatory approaches to help compensate those areas
that are environmentally rich with lot of stress on resource conservation with
those areas that are not environmentally rich but have developmental activities
going on.
Use of cooking fuel should also be one aspect of the SoE study. Use of biofuel has
great potential in Uttaranchal and should be explored in detail.
In Uttaranchal new stakeholders are emerging who are fast changing the status of
existing stakeholders with reducing power with them. This is not good for the
state and needs to be looked into carefully. This is also leading to conflict of
interest.
SoE should look into the role of the existing research institutions and
organizations wrt Environment & Development.
Distortions in data have lead to planning distortions. Land settlements are related
to planning department data and wrong data is leading to land encroachments etc.
in the state.
Finally it was agreed that there are numerous examples of People’s innovation in
Uttaranchal and they need to be highlighted for promoting local ownership and
decentralized development in the state through the state of the environment report.
The above roles are expected to be fulfilled through half day meetings where the
IDFC team will present its work and seek guidance from the reference group. It is
expected that the reference group will meet about three times during the duration
of the study and the tentative schedule is provided below
• 1st meeting before finalization of Inception report- Early Novermber
• 2nd and 3rd meeting between inception report and draft SoE report stage-
November end and early February 2004
• Final meeting before final stakeholder workshop and final report- early June
2004