Raipur, April 27, 2026: Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary Vikas Sheel today directed officials to formulate panchayat-wise action plans to make the state’s rural areas resilient to climate change.
Presiding over a meeting held today at the Secretariat—attended by the Steering Committee constituted for Chhattisgarh State’s Action Plan on Climate Change—the Chief Secretary further directed that proposals be submitted to utilize available funds from the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) corpus for climate change-related programmes within the state.
The meeting featured deliberations regarding the Chhattisgarh State Climate Change Centre, the State Action Plan on Climate Change, the implementation of climate change-related programmes within the state, the constitution of the State Climate Change Authority, and the execution of carbon credit-based initiatives.
Detailed discussions were held with departmental secretaries regarding the implementation of the Action Plan on Climate Change. During the meeting, Richa Sharma, Additional Chief Secretary of the Department of Forest and Climate Change, provided information regarding the background of climate change, its causative factors, and the negative impacts of climate change specifically within Chhattisgarh. PCCF (Principal Chief Conservator of Forests) Srinivas Rao and APCCF (Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests) Sunil Mishra were also present at the meeting.
During the meeting—which was conducted via video conference—officials from the Departments of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Forest and Climate Change, Water Resources, Urban Administration, Transport, Commerce and Industry, Minerals, Energy, Health and Family Welfare, Revenue and Disaster Management, Women and Child Development, and Panchayat and Rural Development presented information regarding the implementation of the Climate Change Action Plan within their respective departments.
Participants in this video-conference meeting included Niharika Barik Singh (Secretary, Panchayat and Rural Development), Sushma Sawant (Principal Secretary, Law and Legislative Affairs), Shahla Nigar (Principal Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare), P. Dayanand (Secretary, Mineral Resources and to the Chief Minister), Basavaraju S. (Secretary, Urban Administration and Development and to the Chief Minister), Rajat Kumar (Secretary, Commerce and Industry), Dr. Rohit Yadav (Secretary, Energy), S. Prakash (Secretary, Transport), Ankit Anand (Secretary, Housing and Environment), and Iffat Ara (Special Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management).
Additionally, officials from various state government departments—including the State Planning Commission, NABARD, the Centre for Environment Education, the Indian Institute of Science, and the Department of Agricultural Meteorology at Indira Gandhi Agricultural University—participated in the meeting.
