BS RAWAT
NEW DELHI: Even as climate change is a major global challenge, Union Minister of State for Environment, Babul Supriyo, has said that technology can be used for maintaining balance between environment and development.

"Climate change is one of the biggest global challenges that we are facing,” Mr Supriyo said while speaking at the ‘National Conference on Recent Trends in Environment Pollution and Disaster Risk Reduction’, organised by FICCI in Delhi.

Highlighting the importance of using modern technologies to check environment degradation during developmental activities, the Minister cited the example of coal mining where large tracts of land is dug to extract coal, but more than half of the reserves are left untapped as it requires deeper digging.

He also cited the example of Thames river and how it was cleaned. He wished for getting the same technology to clean Ganga river.

Mr Supriyo said that India’s greenery has gone up, forest cover has gone up by about 1.2 per cent.”

“Our role in environment is extremely critical not only because of our landmass but because of the tremendous population and the state of evolution we are in terms of our economy, our manufacturing, our growth and the opportunity we have to make the right choices,” said Dr Sangita Reddy, President, FICCI.