Impact of Mid-Himalayan Watershed Development Project on its Beneficiaries in North-western Himalayas: A case of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) plays a vital role in sustaining life. It is important to the 50 million people who lives on its slope, and equally but less visibly important to nearly 1.2 billion people, a fifth of the world’s population who depend on its downstream river basins. Another 3 billion rely on it indirectly in terms of food and energy production. The 11 mountain and hill states constitute almost 20.3 per cent of the total land mass of the country. Approximately 4 per cent (Census of India, 2011) of the Indian population live in the mountain states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and the hill district of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal. Keeping in mind the geographical aspects of the hills states where the forest cover areas are large and vast, and the International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 10 Number 01 (2021) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com