Socio-Cultural Environment - Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At the outset I thank the National Hydroelectric Power Coirporation
Ltd. for being generous with fund required to execute my share of
project work and Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF),
Government of India for getting this studies done. I thank the officials
of the MoEF and NHPC for giving us patient hearing during those
long meetings held at New Delhi and Gangtok. I am deeply indebted
to Prof. M.K. Pandit of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies on
Mountain and Hill Environment (CISMHE), University of Delhi, for
giving me this opportunity to be a part of the Carrying Capacity Study
of Teesta River Basin (CCTRB) Project team. I am also grateful to his
collegue Dr. Arun Bhaskar for his continuous help and support. I am
thankful to all the Principal Investigators (PIs) of this project for their
valuable suggestions, constructive criticism and appreciation. I am
particularly grateful to Dr. Pramila Goyal, fellow PI from IIT, New
Delhi for arranging my stay at the IIT Guest House every time I visited
Delhi.
My heartfelt thanks go to all the officials, Panchayat members and the
villagers of Sikkim who bore my long sessions of questioning and
provided me with invaluable data and information. I am also thankful
to all those benevolent souls who guided and accompanied me
during my fieldwork in remote villages.
This report is an outcome of teamwork. I acknowledge the support I
received from my research assistants Sm. Soumya Mitra and Sri
Manna Mukherjee, who ungrudgingly helped me in collecting, computing