NEW DELHI, Feb 25 — The seven North-eastern States which account for about seven per cent of country’s geographical area contribute accounts for 25.78 per cent of the country’s forest cover. The scenario based on the Forest Survey Report of 1999 may look good on paper but is a far cry from the target of 33 per cent set by the National Forest Policy of 1998 with a deadline of 2012.
Union Environment and Forest Minister, T R Baalu himself was rather sceptical about achieving the targets given the paucity of funds faced by his ministry, even as he pleaded with members in the Lok Sabha Monday morning to come to his rescue by prevailing upon the Planning Commission to allocate more funds. ‘As of now because of the paucity of funds we have not been able to nowhere close to achieving the target of 33 per cent forest cover. The inflow of funds is not even enough to achieve one per cent of the target. Even though there is a provision of five per cent. We cannot achieve the target with this’, he asserted. The 10th five year plan outlay requires an infusion of Rs 13,400 crore outlay but Rs 1604 crore has come to the Ministry, he lamented.
Even as he sought the help of the members to persuade the Planning Commission, members belonging to the Opposition differed. Margaret Alva of the Congress Party pointed out that the Central government does not require funds from abroad to green the country. She held the Ministry’s move of engaging forest contractors in place of local women in the social forestry schemes responsible for the low forest cover. The forest contractors indulge in rampant corruption. The forest contractors are eating the money and you want more funds, she charged.
The Congress member also criticised the policy of penalising the States for achieving the targets. She alleged that those States which have satisfactory forest cover are not allowed any activities why State with low forest cover all allowed to go unpunished. She said the Ministry would press for equitable forest cover and every State should be compelled to have 25 per cent of green cover.
In this connection, the case of North-Eastern States is interesting. According to the figure furnished by the Ministry in the House, the seven States together have 1,64,299 sq km of forest cover, while in the country it is 6,37,293 sq km. The States accounts for 25.78 per cent of forest cover, which just about satisfies the norm. Among the States only Sikkim, Chhatisgarh, Goa, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh have forest cover higher than that of the country’s average as a share of the geographical area.
Earlier, the Minister said that national forest cover has shown a marginal increase to 19.39 per cent in 1999 from 19.27 per cent in 1997. Dense forest cover has increased only marginally, he conceded. Sri Baalu said that 10 projects with an outlay of Rs 2,969 crore has been taken up by the Ministry with foreign aid.
However, deputy leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Shivraj Patil said disapproved of the pace of increase saying that the 19 per cent of the forest cover also includes the North-east, Eastern and Western Ghats. ‘If we exclude these regions then the forest cover in the country would be in the region of 15 per cent. He suggested that the government should launch special afforestation schemes to remove the imbalance. The Minister in reply to a separate question disclosed that under the National Forestry Action Programme (NFAP) Assam has been given a target of improving forest productivity by .92 million hectares besides expanding forest area by .18 million hectares.