Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM's opening remarks at the meeting of the Council on Climate Change

I am happy that we are today considering the National Water Mission and the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat. Both these Missions are extremely critical to addressing the issues of mitigation and adaptation to climate change. As far as the Water Mission is concerned, it goes without saying that water would be a very major area of stress in our country in the decades to come. We need to create a generation conscious of the need to use this life-supporting resource in the most sustainable manner. Water has multiple uses and, therefore, its management is often fragmented. I am happy to see that the Mission document is focusing on creating an integrated perspective.

The first step in this direction is a comprehensive water data base in the public domain and assessment of the impact of climate change on our water resource.

We need to promote citizen and state action for water conservation, augmentation and preservation. We need to focus attention on vulnerable areas especially the areas where ground water is over exploited. We also need to promote water use efficiency, all of which call for basin level integrated water resource management.

As far as the Mission on Sustainable Habitat is concerned, there are clear areas of action that we need to focus on.

The most important is the creation of "green standards" relating to making habitats sustainable and having the Municipal Law amended to make them enforceable. The second major area would be the promotion of public transport in our major cities for which we made a beginning through the stimulus package. We need to reorient city development plans to make them facilitative of sustainable habitats. We need to focus on waste recycling and new technologies that create energy from waste. There will also be a set of complementary actions in the areas of capacity building including changes in the curriculum to create green engineering professionals. I think that some of the institutional arrangements proposed to be set up at the Central, State and District levels require some discussion. There is inadequate or no political representation in these bodies. For the Mission to succeed at the ground level, strong political support is required and peoples' representative should be co-opted into the process of planning, implementing and monitoring the Mission activities. It is a time that we address these tasks with the urgency they deserve and I am sure that through the deliberations of this Council we can now finalise the two Missions and begin to implement them. I look forward to your comments on the presentations.