ENVIS Centre, Chandigarh 2.56

ENVIS CENTRE CHANDIGARH
ENVIS Centre, a setup of Ministry Of Environment, Forests, And Climate Change (MoEFCC), was established in 2002 as node in the department of environment, Chandigarh administration. The node was upgraded to centre in 2004.
The Centre maintains and updates information on ‘Status of Environment and Related Issues’ pertaining to Chandigarh. The centre deals with the collection, management, uploading and publication of environmental data from nearly 35 departments of the UT. The centre has been handling two websites (www.chenvis.nic.in & chandigarhenvis.gov.in), which are updated daily with green information & news, environmental reports, ENVIS newsletter, news bulletins, SOER (biennial) and Eco-clubs established in Chandigarh. The centre publishes quarterly news letters, registered by the name “Paryavaran Patra” bearing ISSN No. 0974-7087.

ENVIS SCHEME INTERNATIONALLY
ENVIS (Environmental Information System) has started implementing the World Bank assisted Environment Management Capacity Building Technical Assistance Project (EMCBTAP) since January, 2002 which aims at structuring the ENVIS scheme by extending its reach through involvement of Institutions/Organizations in State Governments, academia sector, corporate sector, NGO sector, etc. The project also aims at broadening the ambit of ENVIS to include varying subject areas, themes, local conditions, issues, information/data needs of the country pertaining to environment and planned to be achieved through enlargement of participatory Organizations/Institutions, called EMCB-Nodes in various sectors and through introduction of modern means of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This programme is a continuation of the Sustainable Development Networking Programme: India (SDNP-India) programme, funded jointly by the UNDP and IDRC, Canada.

ENVIS SCHEME IN INDIA
As the collective Environmental Information has a major role in National Policy planning and Sustainable Development objectives; 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 broad-ranging, multi-disciplinary subject, a comprehensive information system on environment would necessarily involve effective participation of concerned institutions/ organisations 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/organisations 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. Both the Focal Point as well as the ENVIS Centres has been assigned various responsibilities to achieve the Long-term & Short-term objectives. For this purpose, various services have been introduced by the Focal Point. ENVIS due to its comprehensive network has been designed as the National Focal Point (NFP) for INFOTERRA, a global environmental information network of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In order to strengthen the information activities of the NFP, ENVIS was designated as the Regional Service Centre (RSC) of INFOTERRA of UNEP in 1985 for the South Asia Sub-Region countries.

Responsibilities of Focal Points & ENVIS Centres
Both the Focal Point as well as the ENVIS Centres has been assigned various responsibilities. The broad responsibilities of the Focal Point and ENVIS Centres are as under:

Responsibilities of Focal Point
· overall coordination of ENVIS network;
· identification of ENVIS Centres in specialised areas, their location in selected institutes/organisations and their linkage with the Focal Point;
· farming guidelines and uniform designing procedures for ENVIS Centres;
· collection, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information on areas in which ENVIS Centres have not been established and in some general areas of environment like environmental research, environmental policy and management, environmental legislation, environmental impact assessment, etc.;
· responding to user queries directly or through the ENVIS Centres;
· Establishment of Data Bank containing data on some selected parameters, and computerisation in important application areas of environment;
· identification of data gaps and knowledge gaps in specified subject areas and action to fill these gaps;
· liaison with relevant International Information Systems and other national information systems;
· publication of a quarterly abstracting journal Paryavaran Abstracts;
· bringing out various other publications on current awareness services;
· organising training and seminars;
· monitoring and reviewing of ENVIS; and
· Assisting the Scientific Advisory Committee of ENVIS with inputs and rendering other secretarial help.

Responsibilities of ENVIS Centres:

· building up a good collection of books, reports and journals in the particular subject area of environment;
· establishment of linkages with all information sources in the particular subject area of environment;
· responding to user queries;
· establishment of a data bank on some selected parameters relating to the subject area;
· coordination with the Focal Point for supplying relevant, adequate and timely information to the users;
· helping the Focal Point in gradually up an inventory of information material available at the Centre; identification of information gaps in the specified subject areas and action to fill these gaps;
· bringing out newsletters/publications in their subject area for wide dissemination