Climate change: Assam Government taking steps to check impact

 STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Worried over climate change and its consequential effects, the State Government has taken various measures, including controlling urban pollution, monitoring water pollution regularly, cleaning polluted rivers and bodies of water, etc.

According to a survey by the Science, Technology, and Climate Change Department, climate change has an impact on agriculture, water resources, health, and the climate in the state. Uncertain rainfall has an adverse impact on the cultivation of paddy in the state. The longer dry spell has also adversely impacted the tea industry in the state. The areas of water bodies and their levels shrink in forest reserves due to the longer dry spells.

According to official sources, barring Guwahati, Nalbari, Sivasagr, Nagaon, and Silchar, the pollution levels in other urban areas in the state are almost normal. To minimise the pollution in these five urban areas by 2030, the Pollution Control Board, Assam (PCBA) has started an action plan. It hopes to lower the pollution by 40 percent of the current level.

Brick kilns are notorious for air pollution in Assam. To check this menace, the department has instructed the brick kiln owners to adopt the Zig-Zak Staking and Firing Technology, which reduces pollution by 50–60 percent. The department trained the brick kiln owners on the use of this technology in March this year. According to sources in the department, the department told all industries to plant trees in 33 percent of the areas of their factories mandatorily, besides setting up effluent treatment plants at their sites.

According to a report from two years ago, 44 rivers and beels in the state were identified as polluted, and that prompted the PCBA to prepare an action plan and start to act on it. The outcome is such that only nine rivers and beels in the state are polluted now.

The department collects samples of 71 rivers, 44 beels, and underground water from 52 spots monthly to ascertain their pollution level. The department takes action based on the findings of the sample test.

According to sources, the State Cabinet has already approved the Assam State Action Plan on Climate Change, version 2.0, 2021–2023. Under this plan, the State Government has already submitted what it will do under the action plan to the Central Government. The department has also taken some steps to confront climate change by involving community stakeholders, like setting up environment and climate cells in as many as 40 colleges in the state, focusing on the use and generation of solar power, and setting up eco-clubs in 8,316 schools and 100 colleges in the state.

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