Assam merged with French for forest conservation proj

A project on forest and biodiversity conservation is on the anvil at Assam with assistance from the French Development Agency at an estimated cost of 60 million Euros.

Official sources said that, with Assam being one of the bio-diversity hotspots in the country, a coordinated approach for conserving the biological heritage with involvement of research institutions, academicians and civil society was necessary and hence the new project will go a long way in fulfilling this aim.

The sources also said that, another pilot project for natural resource management and integrated livelihood under World Bank Funding launched in 2007 in two forest divisions to usher in a new era of forest management has now been expanded to nine forest divisions.

As the state has a huge forest cover, a number of schemes have been taken up for increasing tree coverage and in the current financial year 11,592 hectares of plantation and 127 saplings are targeted to be raised.

On the raging man-animal conflict that has taken a toll on wildlife, the government is in an effort to reduce the menace proposed to erect solar-powered fencing in and around the reserve forest areas, the sources added.

To develop the tourism sector, the sources said, a number of steps have been taken up to create infrastructure, facilitate growth of income-generating tourism related activities and for marketing and promoting the tourism potential of the state.

One of the plans is to set up a mega wildlife circuit covering national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, reserve forests and bird sanctuaries in the state.

Another mega circuit is to cover the important tourist spots of Chirang, Barpeta, Nalbari, Guwahati, Morigaon, Nagaon and Sonitpur.

Destination development is proposed to be taken up with the Sasoni Merbeel eco-tourism project in Dibrugarh district and the fresh-water lake Deepor beel project in Guwahati.

A number of ghats (river fronts) and jetties at strategic places along the mighty Brahmaputra are sought to be developed and a luxury cruise vessel in joint venture with private entrepreneurs will be started soon, the sources said.

For improving rural tourism, an innovative scheme to provide tourists home-stay facilities in selected rural homes will be also be taken up, the sources added.