ABDUL WAHAB KHAN | NT
PANAJI: The work on the preparation of people’s biodiversity register (PBR) for the Panaji city has been affected by the ‘lack of co-operation.’
The CCP councillors say that work on the PBR is possible after the office hours and during the weekends whereas the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) staff members are ‘unwilling’ to work after the working hours and during the weekends.
Also, the work on zone-wise resource mapping for the city, which is the first step in preparing people’s biodiversity register, appears to have hit a roadblock with the CCP councillors failing to find knowledgeable persons and arrange meetings with the residents of their wards. It has been six months now after the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) was hired to work on the project.
With no other option left, the TERI, skipping the resource mapping, has now decided to take help from supervisors appointed in each of the twelve zones in identifying resources for preparing life scape and landscape, to find out the number of people who rely on natural resources for their livelihoods, and the role played in maintaining their resources, which is the next step in the process of preparing the biodiversity register.
The GSIDC has hired the TERI in the month of June to prepare a biodiversity database for better species diversity management, dovetailed to the smart city initiative.
The TERI has been offered Rs 12 lakh to conduct the year-long project. One of the most important components of the study is the preparation of the PBR document in complete consultation with the community.
The TERI has already started making calls and approaching councillors personally, asking them to arrange a meeting with the community members so that their sightings and knowledge about resources surrounding them can be reflected in the study.
“Since October, we have been making regular calls to the councillors, requesting them for the contact numbers of knowledgeable persons from their wards but very few of them gave positive response and rest were not co-operative, which has delayed the entire process,” said a TERI official.
Admitting that they are not able to work after the office hours and during weekends, the TERI official said some councillors didn’t attend to calls while others asked them to either call or meet them personally after 7 p.m. or on weekends, which they found difficult to do.
He further said that that “we have even asked them to give at least the contact numbers or introduce us to knowledgeable persons of their wards.” There are altogether thirty wards in the CCP jurisdiction.
Though the TERI started the work in June on the resource mapping, it could not manage to meet its own deadline of October-end due to non-cooperation of the ward representatives. Only representatives of five wards – ward 1, ward 2, ward. 19, ward 21 and ward 23 have come forward to help in the preparation of the resource map. When contacted, councillor of ward 30 Rupesh Halarnkar told this daily that “the TERI official has been calling me to arrange a meeting with the locals to explain about the project during weekdays, which is not possible, and hence I told him that it can be done only during the weekends.”
The TERI has claimed that it has been pushing hard to familiarise councillors with the concept of biodiversity conservation and seeking their cooperation to provide knowledgeable people from their ward to report back their sightings and share the knowledge about the distribution of biodiversity in their ward.Pascoela Mascarenhas, a councillor of ward 17, informed this daily that she has been never contacted by TERI official relating to the requirement of the project.
“I don’t have any knowledge about PBR and nobody approached me seeking my co-operation,” she added.A ward member Vaidehi Naik said that “I have given them full cooperation but they are asking to arrange a meeting with locals which is difficult during the weekdays.”