The Hindu : Resource crunch hits forestry programme

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 27, 2003

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National

Resource crunch hits forestry programme

By Aarti Dhar

NEW DELHI FEB. 26 . The Centre's ambitious target of bringing a third of the country under forest cover, initiated under the National Forestry Action Programme (NFAP), is in deep trouble due to lack of resources.

A comprehensive strategic plan, launched in 1999, to address the problems of the forestry sector in line with the National Forest Policy, 1988, requires an estimated Rs. 13,000 crores annually. The available resources are in the range of Rs 1,600 crores. Doubts are now being raised about the viability of the project.

The objective of the NFAP is to bring 25 per cent of the land area under tree cover by the year 2005 and 33 per cent by 2012 through afforestation and by arresting deforestation for achieving sustainable development of 76.5 million hectares of forests. This includes bringing over 29 million hectares of non-forest area under tree cover through forestry, farm forestry and urban forestry. The country's forest cover at present is only 19.39 per cent of the geographical area.

The Centre has initiated consultations with donor agencies to secure funding for the NFAP. Efforts are being made to mobilise resources both from external and internal resources to increase allocation to the forestry sector in the coming year, though the pace of inflow of funds has been disappointingly slow.

States have been asked to step up allocation to the forestry sector and seek more funds during the tenth Five Year Plan.

The programme was initially for 20 years, but its term was reduced to 10 years by the Planning Commission, with the target to be achieved by the end of the Eleventh Five Year Plan in 2012.

Surveys conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests have shown that the country's forest cover has increased from 19.27 per cent to 19.39 per cent between 1995 and 1998, while dense forests have increased by 11.27 per cent to 11.48 per cent.An increase in forest cover has been observed in 19 States and Union Territories, but 12 have shown loss.

The seven North-Eastern States account for 25.78 per cent of the country's forest cover, though their share in the geographical area is only about 7 per cent.

The forest cover in the region ranges from 57 per cent in Tripura to 86.99 per cent in Mizoram.Among the other States, only Sikkim (43.94), Chhattisgarh (41.93), Goa (33.80), Orissa (30.2), Madhya Pradesh (29.73), Kerala (26.56) and Himachal Pradesh (23.50) have forest cover higher than the country's average.

The lowest forest cover is in Haryana (a mere 2.18 per cent) and Punjab (2.80 per cent). Among the other States showing lower forest cover are Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

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