Bhubaneswar: Even Odisha is not spared from the impact of climate change that has caused natural disasters in the past few years.

The effect of climate change is seen in many sectors. The floods, cyclones, drought, sea-level rise, heatwave, earthquake, landslides, uncontrolled air flow and rainfall are some of the natural disasters that Odisha has witnessed due to climate change, informed Odisha Forest, Environment & Climate Change Minister Ganesh Ram Singhkhuntia the House here today.

Replying to a query by Rajanagar MLA Dhruba Charan Sahoo, the Minister told the House during the Monsoon session of the Assembly that food shortage is the major threat caused by irregular rainfall.

"If appropriate steps will not be taken on time against climate change, the possibility of aggravating these issues can not be avoided in upcoming days," he said.

As part of the remedy to deal with the challenges caused by climate change, the Odisha Government has prepared a blueprint and executed it in different sectors including forest, agriculture, housing & urban development, industries, transport, water resources and energy.

This apart, the state government has taken up afforestation activities under different schemes during last 5 years.

As per the data revealed by the minister in Assembly, the extensive afforestation has been made in 54,500 hectare forest area, 3,63,138 hectare forests have been revived and 19,520 km long roadside afforestation has been made between 2028-19 FY and 2023-24 FY.

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"Total 17.21 crore trees have been planted and 15.21 crore saplings have been distributed among beneficiaries/institutions for plantation at their houses and land under the afforestation programme during the above-mentioned period," the Minister said in his reply to the BJD MLA.

Moreover, Odisha Integrated Irrigation Project for Climate Resilient Agriculture (OIIPCRA) is being executed in the collaboration of Water Resources department and Agriculture department since 2019-20 in 15 districts of the state. The project aims at demonstrating climate smart agriculture in irrigation for augmenting the capacity and income of the farmers in the project area.