The fate of Manipur State Action Plan on Climate Change, 2013 : Part-I

Youth's Forum for Protection of Human Rights (YFPHR) *

The impact of climate crisis is being experienced by the people of Manipur since quite some time and is becoming severe in the recent time.

Unseasonal rainfall, rise in temperature, extreme cold, extreme hailstone, rainfall etc have been witnessing by the people and it has been impacting on health, crop production, animal husbandry, drying up of water sources, etc and till date no action for adaptation and mitigation could be taken up except for firefighting response in the time of disasters or calamities.

Now, we can see Manipur in a state of water crisis for which one blames the other for the impact in which people are experiencing.

One blames the poppy growers and jhum cultivators for deforestation, people engaged in illegal logging activities, firewood business people, charcoal makers etc, and ultimately no solution in the end but mongering hatred among the communities. It is indeed a fact that the catchments areas of the major rivers in Manipur are in a pity state.

It has been 10 years since the Manipur State Action Plan on Climate Change, 2013 was formulated and lying still in the paper while the line departments such as Minor Irrigation, Agriculture, Horticulture, Pollution Control Board, Animal Husbandry, Department of Forest, PHED, PWD, etc has no concrete action plan and budgets allocated for addressing the alarming climate crisis in the state of Manipur.

The Nodal Agency of the Manipur State Action Plan on Climate Change, The Department of Environment and Climate Change is working on to publish the 2nd edition of the action plan while the 1st edition’s action plan remained unimplemented. Except for the Model Carbon Positive Eco-village at Phayeng, Imphal West Manipur which ran 3 years from the financial year 2016 to 2019 having the pilot budget scale of Rs.10 crores.

When receiving information from various departments, the reply is in general statement for almost all the departments ,i.e “The Department has not taken up any work specially related to Manipur State Action Plan on Climate Change”, “No Specific Budget allocation related to climate change”, “no future plan” and others.

Observing the facts, it clearly indicates that Manipur is not in the position to address the issues of climate crisis and people lack realization of the severity of the climate impact which we are going to face now and in the very near future. One cannot deny that the Climate Crisis is closely related to the daily human activities and no one can escape from taking the responsibility.

Therefore, to accelerate the implementation of the action plan, enough research has been done and many recommendations are in place. This is an opportunity to act now for the people who are responsible for electing their representatives to govern the state and the nation.