Realising the importance of Environmental Information, the Government of India, in December, 1982, established an Environmental Information System (ENVIS) as a plan programme. The focus of ENVIS since inception has been on providing environmental information to decision makers, policy planners, scientists and engineers, research workers, etc. all over the country. Since environment is a broad-ranging, multi-disciplinary subject, a comprehensive information system on environment would necessarily involve effective participation of concerned institutions/ organizations in the country that are actively engaged in work relating to different subject areas of environment. ENVIS has, therefore, developed itself with a network of such participating institutions/organizations for the programme to be meaningful. A large number of nodes, known as ENVIS Centres, have been established in the network to cover the broad subject areas of environment with a Focal Point in the Ministry of Environment & Forests. Both the Focal Point as well as the ENVIS Centres have been assigned various responsibilities to achieve the Long-term & Short-term objectives. For this purpose, various services has been introduced by the Focal Point. ENVIS due to its comprehensive network has been designed as the National Focal Point (NFP) for INFOTERRA, a global environmental information network of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In order to strengthen the information activities of the NFP, ENVIS was designated as the Regional Service Centre (RSC) of INFOTERRA of UNEP in 1985 for the South Asia Sub-Region countries.

The Environmental Information System (ENVIS) is a project funded by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India to facilitate collection, analysis and dissemination of information on various facets of environment. Around 90 ENVIS centers have been established over India and each centre has been allotted specific subject area. Our ENVIS centre located at the Puducherry Pollution Control Committee (PPCC), Puducherry focuses on special reference to "Status of Environment Related Issues" . Activities of our centre include collection, analysis, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information in thee subject area allotted .The information is being disseminated through the quarterly newsletter and website.

Long-term objectives:

•   To build up a repository and dissemination centre in Environmental Science and Engineering.
•   To gear up the modern technologies of acquisition, processing, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information of environmental nature; and
•   To support and promote research, development and innovation in environmental information technology.

Short-term objectives:

•   To provide national environmental information service relevant to present needs and capable of development to meet the future needs of users, originator, processors and disseminators of information;
•   To build up storage, retrieval and dissemination capabilities with the ultimate objectives of disseminating information speedily to the users;
•   To promote, national and international cooperation and liaison for exchange of environment related information;
•   To promote, support and assist education and personnel training programmes designed to enhance environmental information processing and utilization capabilities;
•   To promote exchange of information amongst developing countries.