I wanted to buy plants, but ended up buying iPhones, laptops, fridges! Is this how forest conservation will happen?
#News Bureau February 23,2025
How will the environment be protected – by planting trees or by buying iPhones, laptops, fridges, coolers? Will the forests grow if the money received for buying trees is used to buy iPhones, fridges, coolers? Will the forests be redeveloped and will the forests be conserved? At least these questions arise from a CAG report on Uttarakhand. Let us understand this whole matter in a systematic way.
TN Godavarman Thirumulpad of Tamil Nadu, the ‘Green Man of India’, filed a PIL in the Supreme Court in 1995. He demanded to stop illegal felling of forests and illegal timber trade in the Nilgiri region. This case became a landmark case in terms of forest conservation in India. Through this decision, the Supreme Court provided a very broad basis to ‘forest administration’ and forest conservation. After this, in an order given in 2002, the Supreme Court asked the Central Government to create CAMPA i.e. Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority. A fund was created by linking it to this authority. This fund was to be managed by CAMPA. The objective of CAMPA was to compensate for the forest land used for non-forest purposes, thereby encouraging afforestation. In 2016, the related law, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act i.e. CAF came into existence, which was implemented in 2018. The Supreme Court had said in its 2002 decision that the purpose of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 is not limited to notified forest areas only, but to protect all types of forest areas, whether government, private or village forests. The court said that this Act should be implemented widely and the ecosystem should be protected through it. In this way, in every respect, the court had linked all types of forests to the Forest Conservation Act.
There is a system to administer CAMPA in both the Centre and the states. This means that the CAMPA fund of the Centre is separate and that of the states is separate. 90% of the amount that comes for reimbursement under this fund goes to the state funds and the rest goes to the central CAMPA fund. In fact, the CAMPA fund that came into existence after the Godavarman decision was the highest judicial consent that now development projects and conservation of biodiversity are possible simultaneously, provided the governments use this fund in a proper manner. But the governments have repeatedly misused this fund. The money coming under this fund comes in the Public Account of India established under Article-266 (2). Therefore, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India i.e. CAG has been constitutionally authorized to audit it. The same CAG has revealed in its recent report that the Uttarakhand government has grossly misused this fund. When CAG investigated the CAMPA funds between 2019 and 2022, it found that the BJP government of Uttarakhand had spent an amount of about Rs 14 crore illegally.
According to the law, the purpose of CAMPA funds is to reforest those forests which have been destroyed for industrial or infrastructure development, so this amount should have been spent only for the redevelopment of forests but the government spent this amount on purchasing equipment like iPhones, laptops, fridges, coolers and maintenance of government buildings etc.
Not only this, the CAG report shows that at least 37 such cases have been found in which the state government did the compensatory afforestation work eight years after getting the final approval. Whereas under the clear guidelines of CAMPA, afforestation should be completed within one year or two growing seasons after the use of forest land. Due to this delay, not only the cost increased by ₹ 11.54 crores, but the survival rate of the wrongly planted plants was also only 33.51%, whereas according to the standards of Dehradun-based Forest Research Institute (FRI), it should be 60-65%.
The low survival rate of plants shows that the state government has only done a whitewash in the name of afforestation.
I am using the word whitewash carefully. The CAG report itself is confirming this word of mine. According to the report, out of all the land that was found for compensatory afforestation, about 1204 hectares of land was found to be not in accordance with the standards of afforestation. This means that the government selected such land on which afforestation was not possible. The entire administration was involved in this game of cheating nature. The Forest Division Officers, i.e. DFOs, distributed certificates of land suitability without thinking. Perhaps this was the reason that the survival rate of plants became very low. Even after seeing all this, no action was taken against the officials, they were not held accountable. Not only was money wasted, but environmental protection was also tampered with. According to the CAF law passed in 2016, the state government cannot use any forest land for non-forest purposes without the consent of the Center. But it has been made clear in the CAG report that the BJP government of Uttarakhand used forest land for non-forest purposes without the permission of the Modi government at the Center.
More from the discussion
Let us understand all these facts in this way, the Chief Minister heads the State CAMPA. This means that whatever was happening could not have happened without the consent or knowledge of the Chief Minister. This means that the Chief Minister of the state is not following the law, he does not feel the need of law to run the Uttarakhand government. At such a time, the Constitution expects the President to dismiss the government that does not follow the law.
A few days ago, Uttarakhand was in the news regarding the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code. Almost all the BJP leaders were rejoicing by linking it to the Constitution. They said that this code is given in the Directive Principles of State Policy i.e. DPSP. But does the Chief Minister of the state not know that clean environment is a fundamental right under Article 21, and it has also been included in the Directive Principles of State Policy. The governance of the state cannot run only with the Uniform Civil Code, for this, care will also have to be taken for the conservation of clean environment and biodiversity.
Even after this CAG report, if the Uttarakhand government and its head are not held responsible and are not asked to resign, then it should be considered as a tacit consent from the Centre for not following the law and messing with the environment.
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The Prime Minister should know that under the 2015 Paris Agreement, India is committed to “sequestering an additional 2.5-3 gigatonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent through additional forest and tree cover” by 2030. This is part of India’s ‘Nationally Determined Contribution’ (NDC) under the agreement. It is India’s legal commitment at the international level. But if governments continue to misuse funds meant for forests, degrade forest land and treat forest conservation as a burden, India will never be able to fulfil its commitment. Uttarakhand is an ecologically very sensitive area. This area cannot be ‘sacrificed’ on the basis of any party’s thinking. Any kind of negligence here will harm the entire country, it should not be tolerated.
In his historic 2002 judgment for forest conservation in India, the then judge Justice JS Verma had said that “forest conservation is not just a legal obligation, but a legal obligation. It should be understood as a moral and social responsibility rather than a moral one”. I think this is a very important thing. The central government should put aside political ideology and keeping the environment and wider public interest in mind, fix the responsibility of the Uttarakhand state government for this negligence so that not only a strict but also an important message can be sent in the matter of environmental protection.
