Current Affairs 2022: Climate Resilience Information System and Planning Tool and its relevance to India.

By Yash Singhal

See here details about the Climate Resilience Information System and Planning Tool and its relevance to India.

Climate change is one of the hottest topics around the world and this is the need of the hour for everyone except for market liberals, who think that there is no global ecological crisis. Hence, to combat the same, the Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Hon. Giriraj Singh along with Lord Tariq Ahmad, Minister of State for South Asia and the commonwealth in the UK Foreign, commonwealth and development office launched the Climate Resilience Information System and Planning (CRISP-M) tool.

As the world is facing challenges of climate change, our planet is becoming warmer. The comprehensive scientific analysis, accepted by almost all the country’s government clearly shows how abnormal weather conditions can become worse in coming years. Hence, to combat these challenges, countries are committing to tackling this climate change. The world’s richest countries have committed to helping developing nations with $100 Billion a year to cope with climate change, and climate financing has become a key issue of COP26. In alignment with that Climate Resilience Information System and Planning (CRISP-M) has been developed.
CRISP –M tool, is highly beneficial for the rural areas, and thus, a pilot project is currently running in the 7 states of our country namely Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. CRISP –M tool integrates the climate information in geographic information system based watershed planning under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).

This tool will help India in building and planning policies in accordance with climate change. As around 2/3rd of the Indian population resides in rural areas; hence, this directly benefits the major chunk of citizens. Climate change is the real danger that directly affects people’s daily life. We have seen in recent times floods occurring in one region and droughts in other, melting of glaciers causing damages to villages and winter storms creating havoc in concrete jungles. In the greed of economic prosperity and to increase the income of the people, we have left behind our backbone i.e. rural communities. Hence, this tool is beneficial for those communities that will help them to combat the real dangers of climate change. 

For the implementation of this project on such a large scale, Lord Tariq Ahmad lauded India for its commitment to advancing climate initiative through the world’s biggest employment scheme MGNREGA. He also added that this will help low-income groups residing in villages protect themselves from weather-related disasters. Along with that people from all around the globe also appreciated India for such bold steps to help the poor and to tackle climate change issues on such a large scale.

How it will serve its purpose?

CRISP-M is a tool to combat the severe conditions of the weather in a particular region. So, as to plan accordingly of what needs to be done once the prediction is available with the local authorities. For example, if there is a prediction of drought in a particular region, the local authorities or Panchayati raj will give a plan and according to that, the local authorities will plan to build a lake in that village. The MGNERGA scheme employment will be provided by them through creating a lake for the villagers. Moreover, it will give employment under MGNREGA and provide a dedicated infrastructure to a targeted audience. It will also open up new possibilities for the rural communities to deal with projected climate change issues. Along with that CRISP-M tool will help the government and the country as a whole to combat the climate change issues and built robust planning for the growth of the economy that will help in demographic dividend opportunities as well. Though this tool is dedicated to rural communities it will create opportunities for all. 

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