The ‘Climate Change Action Programme’, with a budget of `290 crore, will have the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and the state action plans as part of it. Coordinating with all other union ministries and states, the nodal ministry, MoEF, will assess the progress made under various projects. The NAPCC was prepared under the guidance and direction of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change and was launched in 2008 to fight climate change. It has eight national missions dealing with various sectors and ministries.

“It will be for the first time that we have a thematic programme on climate change. Previously, we only used to have a policy document. Now, we have a defined area and funding to work on that area of climate change adaptation and mitigation,” said a senior MoEF official.

According to the official, the objective of the scheme is to build and support capacity at the Central and state level to assess the impact of climate change in vulnerable areas associated with risks, and launch studies and projects to address the challenges of climate change in all dimensions.

The project has been cleared by the Cabinet and implementation has already begun. There will be an expert committee to monitor it and identify the gaps in implementation of various programmes.

India is in the process of preparing its negotiation positions on various issues for the 2015 global climate change treaty and the effort will also help in reassessing all ongoing climate change programmes and state action plans.

“We have so far received state action plans on climate change from 28 states and eight have been approved, while rest are under consideration. All these will come under the Central programme,” the official added.

The umbrella programme also calls for setting up of Rajiv Gandhi National Institute for Climate Change Studies and Actions which will have four key functional areas.