By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 24: “Climatic change taking place in India and other parts of the world poses a great challenge for us and we have to rise to the occasion to arrest the impact of climate change for the survival of mankind,” said Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. He was speaking at the launch of Paryavaran Monitoring, a network of school weather stations on the occasion of Sastricas, 2012, the first annual techno-cultural fest of NETES Institute of Technology and Science at Mirza on the outskirts of Guwahati today.

Gogoi further said that scientific temperament coupled with the right type of education and training can go a long way in tackling the problems posed by climate change. He underscored the need for new innovative ideas and thinking. “It is through new innovative ideas that we can cope up with any problem and make the society a better place to live in,” said Gogoi. He also announced an assistance of Rs 50 lakh for NITS, Mirza for research work.

Gogoi added that his government had always given emphasis on technical education for creating a pool of skilled and semi-skilled workforce. “We will constitute a Council for Skilled Development. We have plans to set up an engineering and a medical college in every district. A model school in every block in also in the pipeline,” said the Chief Minister.

Paryavaran Monitoring will initially measure, collect and collate various local environmental parameters like temperature and humidity through 300 schools across the Northeast. In the second phase, equipment for measurement of rainfall and wind speed will be added, followed by recording and transmitting sound level, including that of thunderstorm.