On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti and heralding the Iconic Week of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav of MoEFCC (4-10^th October 2021), a web portal – ‘Wetlands of India Portal’ (http://indianwetlands.in/), giving details on wetlands of the country, was launched by the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Bhupender Yadav.The portal is a single point access to all information relating to wetlands.

The portal is a dynamic system for processing information and making it available to the stakeholders in an efficient and accessible manner. The portal also hosts capacity building material, data repository, videos and and information for students. Importantly, a dashboard for each State and UT has been developed to access the portal and populate it with information of wetlands in their administration. The portal would be populated by the different States and UTs and additional features may be added in the coming months.

Login credentials have also been provided for Knowledge Partners. The portal also enables citizen engagement. Currently citizens can register themselves and upload wetland related pictures across different themes. Importantly, registered citizens can opt to take the pledge to become wetland mitraand indicate their State/UT and areas of interest. This information would allow States and UTs to contact interested persons for various programs and initiatives.

The portal has been developed under a Technical Cooperation project “Wetlands Management for Biodiversity and Climate Protection” (Wetlands Project) of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in partnership with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The project is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) under the International Climate Initiative (IKI).

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GK