Maha: Aurangabad's climate action plan to come up by 2023

An action plan for Aurangabad in Maharashtra will be formulated by 2023 to prepare the city to handle climate risks and vulnerabilities and one of the programme's key components will be reduction in emission of greenhouse gases, civic officials said on Thursday.

The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and the Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation (ASCDCL) have hired World Resources Institute, India (WRI) to prepare the city's climate action plan.

A letter of intent (LoI) in this regard was signed on Wednesday, an official release said.

Astik Kumar Pandey, Municipal Commissioner and Administrator and CEO of Aurangabad Smart City, had an online discussion with WRI representatives.

During the discussion, WRI's Lubaina Rangwala said, ''Heavy rainfall, rising temperatures, desertification, droughts and landslides were all caused by climate change.'' ''A timely planned programme is needed to prepare the city for the climate risks and vulnerabilities. And this is why WRI wants to create a climate action plan for the city of Aurangabad,'' Rangwala said.

The climate action plan of Aurangabad will have two main parts. The first is reducing emission of greenhouse gases or critical pollutants and the second is to enhancing city and community capacities to cope with climate change, the release said.

According to the agreement, WRI will provide a 30-year action plan for the city by 2023 in five phases, an official said.

Commissioner Pandey said the corporation would set up a dedicated climate change cell under a deputy commissioner-level official.