The two-day workshop titled “Workshop on Policy Making and Environment Statistics for Sustainable Development” that began on Friday was focused on informing the students, in particular, about the use of environment statistics for sustainable development. A first of its kind initiative that involves policy makers, bureaucrats and academicians, it was hosted by Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), GoUK in conjunction with Department of Economics, Doon University Dehradun.
The panel comprised Dr B M Harbola, registrar of Doon University, Prof V K Jain, VC of Doon University, Y S Pangtey director (DES), Pradeep Chauhan, chief economic advisor Govt of HP, Prof Kusum Arunachalam HoD Environment Science Doon University and Dr Anil Joshi HESCO.
Harbola dwelt on the objective of workshop while Jain presented several environmental issues and statistics for sustainable development. Manoj Pant from DES, Department of Planning said that the immediate purpose of the workshop is to build a framework of understanding on creation and maintaining of a framework of statistics on environmental goods, services and impacts on economic outcomes. R K Sinha, additional secretary, State Department of Planning, focused on the significance of the data in the process of economic and social development. Credible data, honest feedbacks and rigorous methods are needed to ensure a sustained flow of information for effective policy making.
The environmental scientist –turned- social activist and the spear of Gaon Bachao Abhiyan, Anil Joshi highlighted the urgency to look at the economic indicators from the perspective of the marginalised and deprived sections of hilly region of Uttarakhand. He stressed that an expression of indicators like Green Environmental Product (GEP) might help in measuring the true developmental scenario of any region. He also stated that the current indicators of growth like GDP is an expression of the vulgar exploitation by the oppressive class that has been appropriating the resources of the poor in the name of development. He spoke about statistics being so distorted.
“We have a tendency to ignore whenever we come face to face with stats regarding anything”. He concluded that statistics is defined as anything that is not understandable.
The workshop focused on identifying the data gaps in environmental and eco- system statistics, review the existing methods for collection and analysis of environmental statistics.
The second half of the workshop focused on the issues and challenges of collection of statistics and developing a plan of action for achieving sustainable development.
The workshop is potentially a step towards a larger effort to make the state a responsible user of resources, Pangtey remarked.