Jamnagar's newly inaugurated National Institute of Marine Biodiversity will become the country’s fist dedicated institute to the study of deep-sea life.
This was revealed during a recent national conference on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), this news is significant as this conference was also attended by officials from the World Bank
A senior environment expert with the World Bank, Tapas Paul also added that the World Bank is keen on study of the high seas.
Paul added that Jamnagar institute will not have the same function and similar fields of study as the other institute set-up by MoEF under ICZM inside Anna University, Chennai.
Newly appointed project director of the ICZM Jamnagar, E Balaguruswamy said some 300 officials from the various agencies under the Forest Department will be trained in scuba-diving at the Marine Wildlife Sanctuary Jamnagar by the year-end, including staff of GEER Foundation, Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC) and staff of the Marine Wildlife Sanctuary as well as several villagers from the area.
NIMB Jamnagar was setup in a PPP with Reliance Industries at a cost of Rs 30 crore. Union Minister Jairam Ramesh had inaugurated it a month ago.
Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) expressed a interest in this project and world bank funds around 80 percent of the Rs 1,200 crore ICZM project’s phase I.