UTS Voice
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(d) The Ministry has also drafted a comprehensive Action Plan for increasing the Forest and Trees Cover of the country, which envisages a number of policy initiatives, for example Multi Stakeholder Partnership for Forestation of Degraded Lands, Insurance scheme for tree plantation, Rationalisation of import tariff on forest products, marketing reforms etc. The draft Action plan is under consultation with various Ministries of Government of India.
(e) Further, in order to increase the tree cover outside the notified forests, the government has mooted an Afforestation scheme involving Panchayati Raj Institutions. The Ministry is formulating the scheme is Consultation with Forest Departments, Panchayati Raj Departments and the Rural Development Departments of the States/ UTs.
What are the Ministry of Environment and Forests plan for developing waste land and ecological degraded land?
• As per State of Forest Report 2003 published by Forest Survey of India , the total forest cover of the country is 67.83 million hectares, out of which 28.77 million hectares is degraded forests.
The National Afforestation Programme (NAP) scheme, being implemented by the Ministry, aims at rehabilitation of degraded forests and fringe areas through people’s participation, following the principles of joint forest management (JFM). The scheme is being operated in a decentralized mode, through a two-tier set-up of Forest Development Agency (FDA) at the forest division level and Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) at the village level, It is envisaged to cover approximately 811 forest divisons in the country (territorial and wild life divisions) under the NAP scheme, by operationalising FDA projects in them. So far 729 FDA projects have been approved by the Ministry at a total cost of Rs 1526.78 crores to treat an area of approximately 9.36 lakh hectares through 24215 JFMCs.
A total of Rs 1176.03 crores has been released under the scheme so far. The Government has stepped-up the allocations of this scheme, and during 2007-08 our budget allocation for this scheme is Rs. 322.55 crores.
• As per the Wastelands Atlas of India 2005 published by National Remote Sensing Agency and Ministry of Rural Development , the total wastelands in the country is 55.27 million hectares, which was approximately 17.5 % of the surveyed geographical area of the country. In order to tackle wastelands outside the notified forests , the government has mooted an Afforestation scheme involving Panchayati Raj Institutions. The Ministry is formulating the scheme in Consultation with Forest Departments, Panchayati Raj Departments and the Rural Development Departments of the States/ UTs.
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