Affidavit filed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the matter of News item titled "Glacial lakes multiply in Himachal Pradesh and Tibet, posing a threat to lives and infrastructure downstream" appearing in the Hindu, August 11, 2024.

The report said that the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) has been assigned the responsibility in the government of India for glacial studies and flood (control) management. Organizations under MoJS like the Central Water Commission (CWC) and National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee are contributing to glacial studies and monitoring.

CWC monitors a number of glacial lakes and water bodies in the Himalayan region and reports the change in water spread area to various stakeholders including the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA).

Govind Ballabh Pant 'National Institute of Himalayan Environment (GBPNIHE) serves as a focal agency mandated to undertake in-depth research and development studies on environmental problems in the Indian Himalayan region. The report mentioned that GBPNIHE is a research institute and has no regulatory or implementation role assigned to it under any of the environmental acts of the country. "That neither MoEF&CC nor GBPNIHE is mandated to monitor glaciers regularly and to set up early warning systems for flood induced disaster management."

The institute has not conducted any specific study related to systematic documentation of expansion of glacial lakes and glacial lake inventory in Himalayan region. However, in a recent study conducted by GBPNIHE, response of 25 glaciers to climate change and expansion of associated glacial lakes in the Western Himalaya (Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh) for the period 1990-2015 was studied. The study showed a large increase in the number of glacial lakes and increase in lake area during the period.