BENGALURU: To ensure climate change is tackled effectively, the state government has introduced the Green Index which will be made an integral part of policies and guidelines. Karnataka is the first state to initiate such a concept. Initially, 20 departments including animal husbandry, forests and agriculture among others will introduce the Green Index while chalking out guidelines.
An official of the Environmental Management & Policy Research Institute (EMPRI), which developed the idea, said, “We have looked into the policy aspect in major schemes. For example, in transportation, index assessment will be on environment-friendly measures like emission reduction, GHG emission, energy efficient fuel and afforestation.” The index, developed by EMPRI and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), has been divided into four classes: dark green (maximum attention to conservation measures), light green (some mention), orange (limited pollution) and red (no mention at all, maximum pollution). A score card with 0-5 ranking has been created and the points obtained will decide the release of funds from the state government to the departments.
The task of ensuring proper implementation will be shouldered by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and a separate team would also be created to ensure guidelines are implemented. Each government department also has the scope to create a separate environmental section to evaluate the guidelines. “A Green Index has been developed for Karnataka because every development project has an impact on the environment,” the official said.