NEW DELHI, Aug 17: With an aim to maximise the forest carbon stock by more tree plantation, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar urged the forest ministers of the states on Monday to use the CAMPA funds exclusively for afforestation and not for payment of salaries.
At a virtual meeting with the state forest ministers, Javadekar said 80 per cent of the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds will only be utilised for afforestation and plantation and the remaining for capacity building.
“At the States Forest Minister’s meeting stressed again that states should use CAMPA funds exclusively for afforestation and plantation. Emphasized that CAMPA funds is not to be used for payment of salary, travelling allowances, medical expenses etc.,” he said in a tweet.
“Eighty per cent of the CAMPA funds to be utilised only for afforestation, plantation. Rest 20 per cent will be for capacity building etc.,” Javadekar told the states. He said the Government is focussed on enhancing forest quality and increasing the tree cover for maximising the carbon stock, which requires several transformational changes in policies and programmes.
Forest carbon stock is the amount of carbon that has been sequestered from the atmosphere and stored within the forest ecosystem, mainly within living biomass and soil and to a lesser extent, in dead wood and litter. Javadekar said his ministry has taken several initiatives, including massive tree plantation, promoting urban forestry through the Nagar Van scheme, landscape-based catchment treatment of 13 major rivers, a LiDAR technology-based survey of degraded forest areas for soil moisture conservation projects and launching the National Transit Portal.
“The ministry is also going to implement the School Nursery scheme shortly,” he said.
Javadekar further said these efforts are critical to meet the goals set under the National Forest Policy, Nationally Determined Commitments and for the restoration of degraded forest land.
The meeting was held to ensure the participation and coordination of all the states in taking forward various initiatives of the Union government to meet national and international goals. The states have shown enthusiasm and said they will cooperate with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) in this endeavour, spokesperson of the ministry Gaurav Khare said.
Several initiatives were discussed at the meeting, including the Centre’s Nagar Van scheme that aims at creating 200 Nagar Van on forest land in a collaborative approach, involving various agencies such as the forest and other departments, NGOs, corporate bodies, industries etc., for which the ministry will be giving grants for fencing and soil moisture works, he added.
The School Nursery scheme aims at involving school students in nursery and plantation operations, the ministry said.
“The objective is to inculcate the spirit of forest and environment in the minds of young students,” Khare said. (PTI)
He added that the study given to the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) for the rejuvenation of 13 major rivers will promote forestry along the rivers, increase the ground water recharge and reduce erosion. Similarly, the LiDAR technology, using airborne methods, will assist the degraded land for the construction of soil measures, the ministry said. (PTI)
LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to Earth. A LiDAR instrument principally consists of laser, a scanner and a specialised GPS receiver. (PTI)
The environment ministry had, in August last year, released Rs 47,436 crore to 27 states for compensatory afforestation and other green activities, including prevention of forest fire, biodiversity management and soil conservation.
Three states that got the maximum funds were Odisha (Rs 5,933.98 crore), Chhattisgarh (Rs 5,791.70 crore) and Madhya Pradesh (Rs 5,196.69 crore).
In February, the ministry released the CAMPA funds for Jammu and Kashmir (Rs 408.3 crore), the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Rs 16.4 crore) and Chandigarh (Rs 11.03 crore), taking the total amount of money released from the CAMPA funds to Rs 47,872 crore. (PTI)
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