Institute
Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE)
The ENVIS centre in Kerala is working at Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE). Formerly it was ENVIS node and came in to existence in May 2003. Then MoEF has decided to convert the ENVIS node in the KSCSTE in to ENVIS centre from February 2005.
Administrative Structure: The Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) is an autonomous body under the Government of Kerala constituted to promote excellence in Science, Technology and Environment in the State. The apex body of KSCSTE is the State Council with Chief Minister of Kerala as the President. The chief executive officer of the Council is Executive Vice President (EVP), then comes Member Secretary, Joint Directors, Scientific Officers etc.
History: Realizing the importance of Environmental Information, the Government of Indiain December 1982, established an Environmental Information System (ENVIS) as a plan programme. A large number of nodes, known as ENVIS Centres, have been established in the network to cover the broad subject areas of environment with a Focal Point in the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), Government of India, New Delhi.
Thematic Area: The focus of ENVIS since inception has been on providing environmental information to decision makers, policy planners, scientists and engineers, research workers, etc all over the country. Since environment is a wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary subject, a comprehensive information system on environment would necessarily involve effective participation of concerned institutions/organizations in the country that are actively engaged in work relating to different subject areas of environment. ENVIS has, therefore, developed itself with a network of such participating institutions/organizations for the programme to be meaningful.
Annual Activities: The ENVIS Centre is publishing quarterly Newsletters, books and booklets. The Centre has developed a website on State of the Environment and related issues of Kerala State (URL: http://kerenvis.nic.in). About 226,700 page loads and 122,912 unique visitors were recorded during 2009-10. All the ENVIS publications, important legislations and government notifications pertaining to the environment of Kerala can be downloaded from ENVIS website. Public can ask questions and get answers through the website. Other important attractions of the site are environmental calender, online quiz, daily news on environment, upcoming events, searchable database, etc.
Objective:
- To create a database on different environment related topics of Kerala by collecting secondary data from Government agencies, R&D Centres, Universities, NGO’s and other reliable sources
- To adopt modern technologies of information acquisition, processing, storage, retrieval and dissemination by creating an exclusive website with the ultimate objective of disseminating information speedily to the users
- To promote national and international cooperation and liaison for exchange of Environment related data and information
- To use the Indian State Level Basic Information Database (ISBEID) software developed by NIC in the ENVIS Centre website
- To publish News Bulletin on State of Environment of Kerala and to generate State of Environment (SoE) Report of Kerala on selected topics
How it is helping Citizen: The ENVIS centre in Kerala is mainly focused to create a database on different environment related topics of Kerala by collecting secondary data from Government agencies, R&D Centres, Universities, NGO’s and other reliable sources and thereby popularizing the environmental informations among the people of Kerala. This will also help to the people reap environmental benefits and protect the environment and environmental resources without damage.