PARLIAMENT QUESTION: NATIONAL MISSION ON STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

PARLIAMENT QUESTION: NATIONAL MISSION ON STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has supported a major research project at Andhra University, Visakhapatnam under the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change (NMSKCC), to assess regional-scale climate change and study the impact on agriculture. Under the study, high-resolution (25 km & 10 km) climate datasets over the Indian sub-continent for the hindcast period (1970- 2005) and for the future time slices (2020-2049 and 2070-2099) have been developed with the help of models.

A total of Rs. 1.84 Crores was sanctioned to Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. An amount of Rs. 1.05 Cr., Rs. 0.33 Cr. and Rs. 0.43 Cr., were released and utilized in the years 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20, respectively.

In Andhra Pradesh, DST has supported one institution i.e. Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, two (2) researchers and six (6) fellows through a major research project under NMSKCC. In addition, this project also facilitated the capacity building of more than 300 researchers on various aspects of regional climate modelling. Further, DST has supported a study under the Mission to conduct vulnerability mapping at the district level across various Indian States/UTs, including Andhra Pradesh. According to this study, Andhra Pradesh comes under the moderately vulnerable category, with major drivers identified as lack of forest area per 1,000 rural population and high incidence of water-borne diseases.

As of now, the Department does not intend to set up any more Centre of Excellence under the Mission.