The Ministry of Environment & Forests implements a scheme on Conservation & Management of Wetlands under which 71 wetlands covering 22 States of the country have been identified for undertaking conservation activities to check further degradation.  Assistance on 100% grant basis is given for activities like survey & demarcation, protection, siltation control, pollution abatement catchment area treatment, de-weeding, biodiversity conservation, supplementary and alternate livelihood support for people dependent on wetlands, community participation and education & awareness.  An amount of Rs. 43.16 crores has been released from 1987-88 to 2005-06 for conservation and management of identified wetlands in the country for various conservation activities.

          So far, 25 sites have been identified from India as Ramsar sites under Ramsar convention. The place-wise, inland- wise, coast- wise, state-wise and category-wise details of these sites are given in the Annexure.  Wetlands are identified on the basis of requests received from concerned State Govts.  These proposals are further examined by an Expert Group on Wetland (EGoW) constituted in the Ministry. Wetland State Steering Committees have been constituted in concerned states under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary having members from subject matter Departments/Academicians/ Stakeholders /NGOs and a Representative from Centre.  The identification of site is based on Ramsar criteria and field visits are made to the proposed site to see their feasibility for inclusion under National Wetland Conservation Programme.

This information was given by Minister of State for Environment & Forests, Shri Namo Narain Meena in his written reply to a question of Shri A. Vijayaraghavan in the Rajya Sabha today.

HRK/SK

ANNEXURE