Poor financial planning and weak alignment with existing state and Central schemes led to major shortfalls in implementing the Green India Mission, a new Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report has found.
The mission, part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), aims to increase India’s tree and forest cover while improving their quality and ecosystem services.
“The absence of convergence, central to the implementation strategy of the Green India Mission (GIM), was evident across all institutional levels,” said the CAG audit report, tabled in Parliament on August 12. It found that the mission also lacked alignment with existing schemes like CAMPA, MGNREGS and other Central and state afforestation initiatives.
The audit covered GIM interventions in 16 states and Union territories for which the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had approved physical and financial targets between 2015-16 and 2024-25.
The mission fell significantly short of its targets. Against a target of improving forest cover quality across 1.4 million hectares, improvement was observed in only 0.11384 million hectares – a shortfall of 91.87%.
Similarly, forest cover increased across only 0.03409 million hectares against a target of 1.4 million hectares, a shortfall of 97.57%.
{{/usCountry}}Similarly, forest cover increased across only 0.03409 million hectares against a target of 1.4 million hectares, a shortfall of 97.57%.
{{/usCountry}}“Furthermore, no state, except Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, conducted any assessment of carbon sequestration during 2015–2025,” the report said, linking this to poor financial management.
The CAG also found poor coordination among government programmes. Schemes such as the Nagar Van Yojana and School Nursery Yojana operated in silos, while the Ministry did not receive consolidated Annual Plans of Operation (APOs) from states and Union territories.
The audit found that only six of 68 sampled APOs were received by the ministry before the start of the financial year, while none was approved on time. APOs set out the annual physical and financial targets for forestry, afforestation and climate-adaptation activities.
The report also found that landscapes with low or moderate vulnerability were selected over areas more vulnerable to climate change, despite vulnerability being a key criterion for the mission.
“The lack of convergence led to non-attainment in securing ₹10,600 crore in proposed funding support. Further, against an outlay of ₹2,000 crore approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs from the 12th Plan for the initial four years of the Scheme alongwith ₹400 crore from 13th Finance Commission grants towards states share, only ₹1,149.14 crore (47.88%), was received through budgetary support during 10 years of implementation.