Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 25 Aug: Chief Secretary Anand Bardhan today chaired a high-level meeting at the Secretariat on Monday to deliberate on the potential of carbon credits in Uttarakhand. Addressing senior officials from departments concerned during the meeting, Bardhan underlined the transformative role carbon credits could play in enhancing the state’s income while simultaneously advancing environmental goals.
He also sought detailed inputs on the current initiatives being undertaken by various departments in this regard and announced that the Environment Department would also function as the nodal agency for all carbon credit-related activities.
Highlighting the unique ecological profile of Uttarakhand, which has a very large forest cover and is also mainly a hill state, the CS observed that the state holds immense promise in the carbon credit domain. He emphasised that the carbon credits not only contribute to conservation efforts but also open up new avenues for economic and social upliftment. Bardhan felt that farmers and local communities, particularly in the hill regions, could benefit significantly by earning carbon credits and trading them in national and international markets, thereby supplementing their income.
Bardhan stressed that there is substantial scope for carbon credit generation within the Forest, Agriculture, and Cooperative departments and directed the Cooperative Department to actively involve Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) in its carbon credit programmes. He further urged the Forest Department to accelerate its work on both carbon and green credits, while the Agriculture and Dairy Development departments were instructed to engage proactively in the initiative. The CS stated that these integrated efforts would not only safeguard biodiversity but also foster sustainable living practices through community participation. He added that such measures would generate fresh employment opportunities for the youth and enhance financial resilience among farmers in the hill districts.
Among those present at the meeting included Principal Secretary R Meenakshi Sundaram, Secretaries BVRC Purushottam, Vinod Kumar Suman, C Ravishankar, Sridhar Babu Addanki, and Additional Secretaries Vineet Kumar and Himanshu Khurana, along with representatives from NABARD and other senior officials.
