Ramesh’s green plan gets SC nod

The Supreme Court greenlighted environment and forest minister Jairam Ramesh’s big ticket proposal to unlock Rs 11,000 crore lying idle in the Compulsory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) and ordered that tranches of Rs 1,000 crore be released every year to the states on pro-rata basis. This is a huge disbursement since the cumulative budgeted allocation for forest and environment by all states for this year is around Rs 800 crore. The states would utilise the fund for compensatory afforestation,catchment area treatment plan and the works undertaken with this fund would employ rural unemployed following the NREGA model, the SC directed. For the last seven years, both public and private companies were depositing large amounts in the CAMPA for setting up projects on forest land as the SC had asked them to do so in a 2002 judgment, which mandated that the money be used for afforestation. The accumulated fund was lying unutilised because of differences between the Centre and the SC-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) over the mode and manner of its usage. The green bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices S H Kapadia and Aftab Alam expressed satisfaction over the quick resolution of a vexed issue and thanked amicus curiae and senior advocate Harish Salve and Attorney General G E Vahanvati. Narrating the sequence of the deadlock for the last five years over the utilisation of funds, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) in its affidavit through Harish Beeran said the monies would be allowed to be spent only on the approved schemes and annual plans relating to compulsory afforestation and specific site plans already submitted by the states and approved by the authorities. The Bench asked the CEC to monitor the spendings and give a six-monthly status report to the SC. More the diversion of forest land in a state for projects, more the money received from that state to CAMPA and logically, that state would get a larger share of the Rs 1,000 crore to be released every year for afforestation activities. The Rs 11,000 crores accumulated in CAMPA over the years include an interest of Rs 1,300 cr earned on the principal amount. As per the data submitted in the court, the highest diversion of forest land appears to be in Nagaland, where project owners have together contributed Rs 1,310 crore to CAMPA. Nagaland is followed by Chhattisgarh which pitched in with Rs 1,232 crore.