India plans to spend $6 billion on creating new forests
The Narendra Modi government plans to spend a staggering $6.2 billion (Rs41,000 crore) to increase Indias green cover.
The billcalled the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2015has already been passed by lawmakers in Indias lower house this week. The aim of this project is to increase Indias forest cover from 21.34% of the total land to 33%. The bill is now waiting to be passed by the upper house, the Rajya Sabha.
This money comes from the fee paid by various private companies and other entities to the Indian government since 2006 for allowing them to set up projects on forest land. The bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha last year, proposes that the state governments be provided 90% of the accumulated funds, with the remaining being kept with the central government.
Our forest cover will dramatically increase and it will result in achieving our target 33% of tree cover and most importantly 2.5 billion tonne of carbon sink as we have indicated in our intended nationally determined contributions (INDC), Indias environment minister, Prakash Javadekar said on May 3.
But experts have their doubts.
I have my reservations about this project, Sreedhar Ramamurthi, an earth scientist and management trustee at NGO Environs Trust, said. There should be a mechanism to monitor that the funds are used correctly. Many a times, forest officials themselves burn down forests when they are pressed for target completion and complain that their work was lost in fires.
The setting up of the authority wont have any impact on forest land,Ajay Kumar Saxena, program manager, forestry, at Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said. Already, a lot of forest land has been affected in the past and we cant reverse the damage that has happened.
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Quartz