The Forest Research Institute (FRI) held a day-long first consultation meeting of Uttarakhand on detailed project report preparation for rejuvenation of Yamuna river through forestry interventions for the State of Uttarakhand on Friday. This meeting was organised under the project sanctioned by Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
Experts from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institute of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation,
State Forest Department of Uttarakhand, Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board and NGOs participated in the meeting and deliberated on the project formulation, implementation and identification of the opportunities and constraints in making the Yamuna clean.
Addressing the gathering, the FRI director AS Rawat informed the participants about efforts to be made in the direction of making the Yamuna clean. He also spoke about the various polluting activities around the Yamuna river.
Speaking at the meet, the ICFRE deputy director general (Research) SD Sharma informed that the council had been assigned task of rejuvenation of nine major rivers of India by incorporating various new technologies by the Government of India. He said that the detailed project report of Yamuna rejuvenation through forestry interventions will be prepared by March 2020. Addressing the gathering, Uttarakhand Forest Development Corporation managing director Monish Mullick mentioned the details of forestry interventions in preparation of the detailed project report for Yamuna.
Various experts expressed their views on cleaning Yamuna in the technical sessions. These technical sessions were held on experiences from Ganga cleaning efforts and future possibilities, forestry interventions, community participation models, stakeholder consultation, technology usage and criteria identification of GIS layers in addition to a panel discussion.