Two months left, 36.15 lakh saplings yet to be planted
*MoEF seeks details of CA works in diversion cases
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Feb 7: Against Rs 240 crore released as part of Annual Plan of Operations under Compensatory Afforestation, the Implementing Agencies of the Forest Department of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have expended only Rs 108 crore during the current financial year so far.
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As per the official document, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR, during the financial year 2024-25, which will close on March 31, 2025, the Annual Plan of Operations was approved at Rs 276.27 crore. Against this, the Finance Department released an amount of Rs 240.42 crore. However, the expenditure, as per the Monthly Progress Reports, was to the tune of Rs 108.66 crore as on January 31, 2025.
Similarly, about 5600 hectares of degraded forest has been treated by planting 40.32 lakh saplings against the target of 9072 hectares and 76.47 lakh respectively. In such a situation how the Annual Plan of Operations will be implemented financially as well as physically in rest of two months of the current financial year remains a million-dollar question, official sources said.
They informed that situation was discussed in a high-level meeting held few days back and senior officers expressed serious concern over the low expenditure and stressed the need to expedite the same.
Accordingly, all the Implementing Agencies were explicitly told to expedite the execution of work and timely booking of expenditure and Heads of the Departments asked to regularly review the progress on the implementation of Annual Plan of Operations.
As per the document, till date, 14417 hectares of forest land has been diverted for non-forestry purposes under Forest Conservation Act. In J&K, Compensatory Afforestation is usually taken up in degraded forests over double the area diverted. Accordingly, 28834 hectares of forest area is required to be taken up for Compensatory Afforestation. However, in J&K an area of 96243 hectares forest area has been taken up for afforestation under CAMPA.
“In pursuance to the orders of the Supreme Court, Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has sought details of Compensatory Afforestation works against each of the forest diversion case”, the document said, adding “mapping exercise has already been completed and verification is being done before submission of details to the Union Ministry”.
According to the document, the balance fund with Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) under different heads is about Rs 604.99 crore and Budgeted Estimates for 2025-26 financial year has been fixed at Rs 162.06 crore considering the ceiling indicated by National CAMPA under different components.
During the next financial year (2025-26), Forest Conservation Act cases cleared up to December 2024 will be taken up on priority and attention to be paid towards restocking of closures which are more than five years only.
Further, saplings will be planted out after keeping them for at least one year full in the nursery so that they achieve optimum height and collar dia. “Forest fire activities will be taken up under different schemes—CAMPA, CAPEX and CSS but there shall not be any overlap between the schemes while preparing the action plan for a forest division”, sources said.
Moreover, Model Ranges will be established under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme and firefighting equipment will be procured and made available at the block level. Further, much attention will be paid towards diversification of species with focus on economically important timber yielding fast-growing species
“Two projects will be prepared for conservation of Western Himalayan species especially of medicinal plants which will also act as a herbal park and these projects will be submitted to National CAMPA for funding from the corpus with the National CAMPA”.
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