Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday requested the Central Government to include the State in the National River Conservation Programme as most of the rivers in northern States originate from it. State Environment Minister JP Nadda raised the issue at the meeting of environment and forest ministers in New Delhi.
Nadda also demanded the setting up of corpus for developing environment infrastructure and sought special funds for the Himalayan States for preserving the nature. He also stressed the need for creating mechanism for ‘green accounting.’
He also requested the Centre to start centrally-sponsored schemes to study the impact of climate change on forests and vegetation.
The State is known as a storehouse of bio-diversity. It supports 25 per cent of the country’s mammalian fauna. The Zoological Survey of India, “Fauna of Western Himalaya”, in its report has recorded 447 species of birds and 107 species of mammals in the hill State.
