Subhashis Mittra
The approval of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) Bill, 2016 by Rajya Sabha has come as a breath of fresh air into the otherwise stagnant debate over environmental concerns getting short shrift in the face of the development agenda.
After much delay, Parliament passed a bill which will pave the way for “unlocking” of about Rs 42,000 crore earmarked for forest land which is lying unspent for about four years.
The Bill, which was hanging fire since May last year when it was approved by the Lok Sabha, seeks to provide for setting up of funds under the central public accounts and that of each State Governments for undertaking plantation, assisted natural regenation, protection of forests and forest related infrastructure development.
The law will ensure expeditious utilisation of accumulated unspent amounts available with the ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) which is presently around Rs 42,000 crore. 90 per cent of the amount will go to states and the remaining will be there with the Central Government.
“The money available under this fund is huge. This fund is not of anybody but of Team India,” Minister for Forests and Environment Anil Madhav Dave said while replying to a debate on the bill.
He said the money would be “returned” to the states which have suffered deforestation on account of development.
Asserting that Government is committed to the development, Dave said the funds would be released at the earliest.
Odisha would get the maximum amount of about Rs 6,000 crore, followed by Chattisgarh which will get Rs 3,861 crore and Rs 3,459 crore for Madhya Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh will get Rs 2,223 crore, Arunachal Pradesh Rs 1462 crore, Gujarat Rs 1100 crore, Himachal Pradesh Rs 1395 crore, Jammu & Kashmir Rs 926 crore, Jharkand Rs 3099 crore, Karnataka Rs 917 crore, Maharashtra Rs 2,433 crore, Rajasthan Rs 1425 crore, Uttar Pradesh Rs 1,314 crore and Uttarakhand Rs 2,210 crore.
The Minister said the bill has been prepared taking into account the Forest Right Act.
“We will have to keep faith on the State Governments. They are competent and elected. Spoon-feeding goes against the spirit of federal structure. We hope that the states would use the funds wisely,” Dave said.
On the concern expressed by some members that the bill does not empower “forest dwellers, tribals and gram sabhas”, the minister assured the House that the rules under the law would be framed after necessary consultations with Gram Sabhas. He said the consultations with Gram Sabhas would even be recorded.
Dave also assured the House that if the rules are not found to be adequate, the Government will “revisit” it after one year. The minister said the entire process would be democratic.
After his assurance, Congress members Jairam Ramesh said that he would not move amendment to the Bill. His party colleagues Subbirami Reddy and Hussain Dalvai also did not move their amendments, leading to its smooth passage.
Giving assurance to the House, Dave said the Government has always followed a principled process of public participation in development process.
“If the expenditure is to be undertaken on land covered by Gram Panchayats in areas which are covered under the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, the rules will provide for the necessary consultations with the Gram Sabha,” he said.
The procedure for the effective consultation in formulation of the projects and expenditure to be undertaken would be specified in the rules, he said, adding that record of consultation would be maintained.
He assured the House that if there are any concerns with the rules on consultation with Gram Sabhas in the Bill, the same will be reviewed after one year.
The Bill provides for transfer of 90 per cent of the accumulated amount, which presently is at Rs 40,000 crore (excluding about Rs 2000 crore of interest already accrued on amounts presently being kept as FDs) to the States.
The funds would be utilised for creation and maintenance of compensatory afforestation and execution of other activities for conservation, protection, improvement and expansion of forest and wildlife resources of the country.
The remaining 10 per cent would be retained at the national level to be used for monitoring and evaluation of activities to be undertaken by the Centre and States/UTs as well as providing research and technical support to states.
All fresh amounts to be realised by the states in lieu of forest land to be diverted for non-forest purpose will be deposited directly into the funds to be created under public account of the respective state.
The passing of the Bill would facilitate in making available more than Rs 6,000 crore per annum to the States/UTs for conservation, protection, improvement and expansion of forest and wildlife resources of the country.
Availability of these amounts will not only help the States/UTs and local communities to ensure better management of their forest resources but will also result in creation of more than 15 crores mandays of direct employment.
A major part of these amounts will be used to restock and improve quality of degraded forests, which constitutes more than 40 per cent of the total forest cover of the country.
Apart from creation of direct employment, utilisation of these amounts will result in increased availability of timber and various other non-timber forest products, and will thus help in improvement of the overall living standards of the forest dependent communities.
However, there are certain pitfalls that must be guarded against as the Government proceeds with squaring development with environmental protection.
For example, development projects should not be pushed as far as possible in the middle of protected forest areas as this would result in fragmentation of the forest land. In turn, this could affect the movement of animals and create areas that would be exposed to degradation.
The waste from development projects, which invariably in the Indian context means industrial plants, are often dumped in these vulnerable ecosystems with disastrous results.
When reforestation is undertaken, it is important to understand that it is best to go in for native species and not ones that either do not flourish in the area or adversely affect the ecosystem.
The Government must learn from past mistakes. In Karnataka, for example, despite massive investments in afforestation, the area under cover actually went down from 1997 to 2011.
Today, 40% of India’s forests are classified as degraded. Now that the Bill has been passed, there is a real chance that India can also go in for natural regeneration of its degraded forests, which in the long run can work out cheaper than creating new plantations. For this, the government needs to study best practices from across the world.
The Bill raises important questions that are fundamentally connected to forests: Whose are they and who should be compensated for their loss. The Compensatory Afforestation, Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) has over the years accumulated a staggering Rs 41,000 crore as recompense for forest land having been diverted for non-forestry purposes.
The amount is calculated on the Net Present Value (NPV) of the diverted forest and the cost of afforestation; it ranges between Rs 5-11 lakh per hectare depending on the type and condition of a forest.
The current bill does not take into account any of the criticism voiced against an earlier version, proposed under the UPA Government in 2013; it continues to ignore the Forest Rights Act. Instead of using the CAMPA funds to empower local communities to carry out afforestation, forest enrichment activities and ecological restoration, the Bill places its faith in the colonial-era forest bureaucracy.
The management of forests, as things are now, is prone to large-scale corruption, which ranges from shortcuts in identifying and buying saplings to the actual planting and protection work.
It is understandable that a developing country cannot put its economic agenda on hold. But environmental security has to be attended to simultaneously to secure the rights of those who depend on the forests for their livelihood and also as an antidote the ill-effects of climate change.
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