The Hindu Business Line : Sikkim forms panel to study glaciers

Cause for fear
State concerned by report from UN panel on global warming, glacial melting.
Will assess potential impact of climate change on its eco-system, livelihood.
Receding glaciers may be disastrous to hydel power plants being built.

Sarikah Atreya

Gangtok, Sept. 24 Alarmed by the steady rate at which glaciers in the Himalayas are receding, the Sikkim Government has constituted a Commission to study the state of the glaciers and its impact on the water system in this tiny Himalayan State.

The nine-member Commission is headed by Prof. S. Hasnain, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

The Commission will review the current status of glaciers and snowmelt and potential impact of climate change on the mountain eco-system and suggest measures for modem scientific and technological intervention.

The Commission will also compile information from primary and secondary sources on glaciology, assess the potential impact of climate change on the mountain eco-system and livelihood in Sikkim, and suggest inter-disciplinary remedial steps.

Hydro projects

This has come at a time when the Sikkim Government has drawn up ambitious plans to harness the vast hydro-power potential of the State and has 23 hydro power projects in the pipeline.

Six mega power projects are being planned on the Teesta, the biggest river in the State, of which the 510-MW Teesta Stage V power project is nearly complete and is scheduled to be commissioned in December.

Sikkim has large number of glaciers which are natural reservoirs for the supply of water to the major river systems of the State. Reports by the UN inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change regarding global warming and glacial melting have set alarm bells ringing in the State.

Likely impacts

The receding glaciers and recurring phenomenon of glacial lake-outburst floods that have been recorded in the entire eastern Himalayan region, could directly impact the livelihood of a huge mass of hill and mountain people, as well as prove disastrous to the array of hydel power plants being built in the Teesta and other river basins in Sikkim and neighbouring States like West Bengal.

The Chief Minister, Mr Pawan Chamling, had written to the Prime Minister in August, extending the State Government’s keenness to be associated with the working of the high level advisory group on climate change — the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change — constituted by the Union Government.

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