I wish to acknowledge with gratitude the continued support and encouragement given by Drs. Harjeet Singh and D. Bandyopadhyay of Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, to the activities of the ENVIS centre at this Institute. The support of Dr. L.M.S. Palni, Director of the Institute, who always made the task of running the centre easy and effective by his able guidance and vision for future is gratefully acknowledged. The keen interest, easy accessibility of my colleagues at the Institute has made several tasks enjoyable and I thank them for the encouragement given. Assistance of Mr. R. C. Prasad in collecting information and Mr. S. N. Nandy in processing the data is acknowledged. I also wish to acknowledge Mr. Ranjan Joshi and Dr. S.K. Nandi’s contribution to this document for assisting me in manuscript preparation and proof reading. The help of numerous researchers and information officers who provided publications and statistical compilations is also acknowledged.

                                                                                                                                                           K.S. Rao