Mr Anil Kumar Jain, Special Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India offered 90 million hectares of degraded land or 30% of India's total land area to industries that can reclaim the land and give it some economic value. Speaking at 'Role of Business and Industry in Land Restoration, Utilization of Degraded and Wasted Land', organised by FICCI as a run-up to the COP-14 United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Mr Jain urged the industry to come up with business models for reclaiming the degraded land.
"More than 90 million hectares of 320 million hectares of total area or about 30% of India is wasteland. This should immediately be brought back into economic use. It is a big elephant in the room which all stakeholders including industry need to solve," he said, adding that the industry should see it as a business opportunity. Mr Jain said that the COP creates an offer of a dialogue for all stakeholders to get together and work towards monetising the degraded land both for environment and mutual benefit. Concept of mutual benefit is also there in climate change, he said. "We are not here to take money. In fact, we are here to tell you that please make money. This is an offer to any corporate, industrial house or activity which relates to land. So, this offer is for infrastructure, food-based, biomass, energy companies and also those businesses that leave a lot of environmental footprints," he added.
Powered by Capital Market - Live News