Government proposes in SC tech panel to evaluate carrying capacity of 13 Himalayan States

What is the News?

The Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change suggested steps to assess the accurate carrying capacity of 13 Himalayan States.

What is Carrying Capacity?

The carrying capacity is the maximum population size that an ecosystem can sustain without getting degraded.

What are the suggestions given by the Central Government to assess the carrying capacity of 13 Himalayan States?

The Union government has urged the Supreme Court to issue directives to all 13 Himalayan states and Union territories for immediately assessing the carrying capacity of mountainous regions.

These 13 Himalayan states and UTs include Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Assam and West Bengal.

States could constitute committees headed by their respective Chief Secretaries to collect information on the load-carrying capacity of their hill stations, cities and eco-sensitive zones.

The Centre will then form a 13-member technical committee headed by the Director of the GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment to evaluate the information collected by the States.

What is the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE)?

The National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) is one of the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). 

The mission is aimed at evolving management measures for sustaining and safeguarding the Himalayan glaciers and mountain ecosystem. 

The measures include enhanced monitoring of the Himalayan ecosystem through establishment of the monitoring network, promoting community based management, human resource development and strengthening regional cooperation.