East Rathong glacier enlisted for long term glacier study

GANGTOK, December 8: As the entire world gets together to tackling the burning issue of global warming, the East Rathong glacier of Sikkim has been enlisted as the index glacier by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India for a long term glacier study.

Rathong glacier would be one of the ten important glaciers in India which will be intensely studied by the environment scientists in combating global warming.
Other glaciers identified are from the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand.

Informing this, the State Science and Technology Secretary LM Arrawatia said that Sikkim was the first to express concern on the degrading environment in the country by forming commission on glaciers and climate change.

“The Government of India has provided priority to this sector of glacier study for which they will be providing monitoring fund. The study would comprise of the report of 1997-2004 with the present data through satellite pictures of the glacier,” Mr. Arrawatia told SIKKIM EXPRESS.

He added that the department will work in coordination with National Glacier Centre, Dehradun and other national research institutes.

The glaciers study, it is informed is being carried out jointly with the national scholars of space application centre at Indian research organization, Ahmadabad.
It was further informed that a project on an integrated programme on dynamics of glaciers in Himalayas was submitted by DG Shrestha, Sikkim State Council of Science Centre to the senior scientific officer in the Ministry but the government of India wanted more coordinated approach for the study of the Himalayan project.

The statistics of Department of Science and Technology identifies 84 glaciers in Sikkim.