By IANS,
Kolkata : The West Bengal government will give a plot to The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to carry out various environmental monitoring projects in the state, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said here Thursday.
“We’ve decided to give a piece of land to Pachauri’s institute near Kolkata to conduct various environmental research activities in the state,” Bhattacharjee said at the Environmental Partnership Summit, 2009, organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Rajendra Kumar Pachauri heads New Delhi-based TERI, a green think tank. He is also head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel peace prize with former US vice president Al Gore.
“We welcome him to come and set up his centre in this part of the country and help us to combat the perils of climate change and its impact,” Bhatacharjee said.
Pachauri was in town to attend a seminar here. “We’re planning to set up our institute here as the state government has promised to give a plot of around five acres in Baruipur Township near Kolkata,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the event. “We have plans to carry out various research activities on environmental issues here such as on the use of bio-fuel, bio-technology and green buildings.”
He said his institute would provide support to policy makers in the state to look for alternative energy sources.
“Our organisation is now involved in some activities in parts of Sundarbans only. But in future we would like to extend it across the state. We’ll work on several climate change issues and will focus on how the problem is affecting the agricultural growth, coastal plains and hilly regions of West Bengal,” Pachauri added.