Environment

The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) has so far disbursed ₹48,606 crore to 32 States

·         Whenever forest land is resoled for non-forest functions, its necessary under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 that an equivalent space of non-forest land has got to be obsessed for compensative afforestation.

·         In addition to this, funds for raising the forest are also to be imposed on whomsoever is undertaking the diversion.

·         The land chosen for afforestation, if viable, should be in close proximity of reserved or protected forest for easy management by forest department.

·         In 2002, the Supreme Court (SC) ordered that a compensatory afforestation Fund had to be created during which all the contributions towards compensative afforestation and internet present value of land had to be deposited.

·         In Apr 2004, Ministry of environment and Forests constituted compensatory afforestation Fund Management and planning Authority (CAMPA) to overlook and manage the compensatory afforestation Fund (CAF) as directed by the SC.

·         The authority was termed because the ‘custodian’ of the fund. additional in 2009, the govt. ordered that State CAMPAs had to be set up to boost compensatory afforestation at state level and conjointly manage green India Fund.

·         Despite of these efforts, CAG report in 2013 discovered that the CAMPA funds remained unutilised.

·         The report declared that between 2006 and 2012, CAF with ad hoc CAMPA grew from ₹ 1,200 crores to ₹ 23,607 crores.

·         Statutory backing Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 came into force from 2018.

·         The Act established a National compensatory afforestaion Fund under the overall public Account of Republic of India and State compensatory afforestaion Fund underneath the general public Account of each state.

·         The payments made for compensatory afforestation, net present value and others related to the project will be deposited in the fund.

·         The State Funds will receive 90% of the payments while National Fund will receive remaining 10%.

·         These funds are regulated by State and National CAMPA.

·         The Ministry also stressed that the fund had to be used for vital wants like compensatory afforestation, catchment area Treatment, wildlife Management, assisted  Natural Regeneration, forest fire interference and management Operations, Soil and moisture Conservation Works within the forest, Improvement of wildlife domain, Management of Biological Diversity and Biological Resources, analysis in forest management and observation of CAMPA works and others.