PUDUCHERRY: Puducherry became the first union territory to adopt green budgeting after Chief Minister N Rangasamy released the green budget report for 2022-23 (baseline year) and 2023-24 on the occasion of the 50th World Environment Day on Monday. Among the states, Bihar was the first to adopt the policy following Odisha and Assam.
The green budget is as per the CM's budgetary announcement, which included gender budgeting and child budgeting as initiatives towards an inclusive and sustainable Puducherry. The report is published by the Finance and Environment Departments Government of Puducherry with research support from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
Green budgeting is a policy-making tool to help achieve environmental and climate goals. The Green Budget is a comprehensive report outlining the green budget allocation, sustainability initiatives and promotes environment-sensitive planning, accountability, and provides valuable recommendations for departmental budgeting.
The green budget of the UT increased by 153% from `191 crore in the baseline year 2022-23 to
`483 crore in 2023-24. The percentage of green budget in the identified schemes increased from 7.78% to 16.42%. Its share in the total budget (revised estimates for 2022-23 and budget estimates for 2023-24) increased from 1.66% to 4.17%. While nine departments identified schemes and green components last year, in 2023-24, 15 departments identified both schemes and green components.
The CM also released the environment survey report of the UT. New initiatives include installation of automatic vending machines for cloth bags at Old bus stand, distribution of 4.5 lakh tree saplings to all households under One Home, One Tree project. Besides, green school awards were presented to 10 schools and logo of Single Use Plastic (SUP)-free campus to two temples, five colleges and three industries.