BHUBANESWAR: The Centre on Thursday released Rs 5,933.98 crore for afforestation and regeneration of forest as a measure of compensating forest land diverted for non-forest activities. This is the highest ever amount released by the Centre from the fund created under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).
Minister for Forest and Environment Bikram Keshari Arukha received a cheque of Rs 5,933.98 crore from Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar at the State Forest Ministers’ meeting in New Delhi.
“The State Budget for forests shall remain unaffected and the fund being transferred would be in addition to it. It is expected that all States will utilise this fund towards forestry activities to achieve the objectives of the Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs) of increasing its forest and tree cover, which will create an additional carbon sink equivalent to 2.5 to 3 billion tonne of carbon dioxide by 2030,” Javadekar said.
Underlining the efforts of the Government towards preserving and improving forest wealth and ecological security of the country, Javadekar said, the fund will be utilised for compensatory afforestation, catchment area treatment, wildlife management, assisted natural regeneration, forest fire prevention and control operations, soil and moisture conservation works, improvement of wildlife habitat, management of biological diversity and biological resources, research in forestry and monitoring.
The fund released by the Centre was so far locked with ad hoc CAMPA authority. With the Centre notifying rules under Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Act, 2016 in August last year, the State’s deposit in the CAMPA fund has been released. As per the CAF Rules, 80 per cent of compensatory afforestation amount will be utilised by States in 13 permissible activities while the remaining 20 per cent will be used for 11 listed works to strengthen infrastructure works for protection of forest and wildlife.
Odisha, the fourth largest State as forest cover is concerned, has increased its forest coverage by adding 885 square km during the last two years by afforestation and forest-protected measures.The State had received Rs 2,644.15 crore in nine years between 2009-10 and 2017-18. Out of this, the State had already utilised Rs 2,607 crore of the fund received.