A silent revolution is taking place in the mid and high hill regions of Himachal Pradesh for one of the largest clean development mechanism (CDM) projects in the world.
Aided by the United Nations, the state government hopes to reduce carbon emissions by 40,000 tonnes per year for two decades making it larger than a similar project in China. “Our project will impact an area of 4,003.07 hectares, which will surpass the 3,500 hectares for a similar CDM project in China, thereby, making it the largest project of its kind in the world,” claims P.K. Kapoor, chief project director of Mid Himalayan Watershed Development Project.
According to the HP government, the project is registered for carbon credits with the UN by which the World Bank will buy carbon credits from the new plantations that are being developed on degraded areas in 177 gram panchayats covering around 4,000 hectare land falling in 10 districts of the state.
“It will reduce 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year for a 20-year crediting period beginning from the year 2006. The project is initially for 20 years where community participation in watershed management will bring a diverse group of people together,” he added.
The project is estimated to generate a carbon revenue of at least `20 crores to the communities and individual landholders for the first crediting period of 20 years, which is strong incentive to protect forest cover in the area.
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2G: JPC to call ex-Trai chiefs, telecom secys
AGE CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi
June 26: The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that is examining the 2G spectrum allocation scam is all set to call former Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairmen and telecom secretaries as witness, from next month.
The JPC, which is expected to submit its report to Parliament before the monsoon session, is likely to record the statements of nine telecom secretaries and four chairmen of Trai. The recordings would be done in four sittings between July 7 and July 13.
Controversial former CVC and telecom secretary Mr P.J. Thomas and former telecom secretary Siddha-rth Behura, who is in jail in connection with the scam, will also appear before the committee. Former secretaries A.V. Gokak, Vinod Vaish, Shyamal Ghosh, Anil Kumar, Nripendra Mishra, J.S. Sarma, Siddharth Behura, Dinesh Shankar Mathur are to arraigned before the JPC as witnesses. Nripendra Mis-hra, S.S. Sodhi, M.S. Verma and Pradip Baijal are the former Trai chairmen, whose statements are to be recorded by the committee.
The JPC has been mandated to examine policy prescriptions, their interpretations, irregularities and aberrations, if any, and their consequences in the implementation of government decisions between 1998 and 2009.