Ramsar Plans for Chilika Gets Green Signal.

The Ramsar Convention Secretariat's proposal to set up a Ramsar Regional Centre for South Asia at Chilika was approved by the State Government recently.

The governing body of Chilika Development Authority (CDA), headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, met here and gave its nod to the proposal. The regional centre would make the lagoon a hub of capacity building for wetland managers of South Asia.

The body also approved the annual plan of CDA at an estimated Rs. 26.74 crore for 2014-15. A host of activities including socio-economic development of fisherfolks living in and around Chilika, development of infrastructure and monitoring and management of the lagoon will be taken up as part of the plan.

The integrated management action plan of Chilika, presented before the 14th Finance Commission with an estimated outlay of Rs. 100 crore, was also approved. It will be implemented during 2015-2018.

A tourism master plan for Chilika and its catchment areas, which seeks to prepare project profile for 10 tourist sites to bring out their investment opportunities, was also okayed by the Government. The master plan's outlay is projected at Rs. 2.42 crore and is being jointly devised by CDA and Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project.

The meeting informed that lake health monitoring system based at Wetland Research and Training Centre has been upgraded using the advanced data buoys systems deployed at strategic locations of the lagoon. These data buoys are providing necessary information to monitor health of the ecosystem to track the impacts of natural or man-made events on real time basis.


THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS