Introduction

Realizing the importance of Environmental Information, the Government of India, in December 1982, established an Environmental Information System (ENVIS) as a plan programme. 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. 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.

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 existance in May 2003. Then MoEF has decided to convert the ENVIS node in the KSCSTE in to ENVIS centre from February 2005.

Objectives

1. 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
2. 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
3. To promote national and international cooperation and liaison for exchange of Environment related data and information
4. To use the Indian State Level Basic Information Database (ISBEID) software developed by NIC in the ENVIS Centre website
5. To publish News Bulletin on State of Environment of Kerala and to generate State of Environment (SoE) Report of Kerala on selected topics

Function

ENVIS is a decentralized system with a network of distributed subject oriented Centres ensuring integration of national efforts in environmental information collection, collation, storage, retrieval and dissemination to all concerned. Presently the ENVIS network consists of Focal Point at the Ministry of Environment & Forests and ENVIS Centres setup in different organizations/establishments in the country in selected areas of environment. These Centres have been set up in the areas of pollution control, toxic chemicals, central and offshore ecology, environmentally sound and appropriate technology, bio-degradation of wastes and environment management, etc.

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 60,000 page loads and 27,000 unique visitors were recorded during 2008-09. 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.

Organizational structure

The organizational structure of the ENVIS Centre is illustrated below:

List of all ENVIS Centres in India