Cabinet approves changes in bill on afforestation

The Union cabinet has given its approval to move official amendments in the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management And Planning Authority (CAMPA) Bill, 2015.

Details:

• The legislation will ensure expeditious utilisation of accumulated unspent amounts available with the ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), which is currently around `40,000 crore, and fresh accrual of compensatory levies and interest on accumulated unspent balance, which will be of the order of approximately `6,000 crore per annum, in an efficient and transparent manner.
• Apart from facilitating timely execution of appropriate measures to mitigate impact of diversion of forest land, utilisation of these amounts will also result in creation of productive assets and generation of huge employment opportunities in the rural areas, especially the backward tribal areas.
•  The amendments include deleting some of environmental services for which credible model to assess their monetary value does not exist while it also provides for prior consultation with states for making a rule under it. The amendments provide for use of monies realised from the user agencies in lieu for forest land diverted in protected areas for voluntary relocation from protected areas.

About the Bill:

The CAMPA Bill is meant to promote afforestation and regeneration activities to compensate for forest land diverted to non-forest uses, by regulating and managing $5.3 billion (almost Rs.350 billion) collected over years.

• The union government in April 2015 approved the bill for introduction in parliament. However, it was rejected in theRajya Sabha, where the government is in minority.

The bill basically envisages the establishment of a national Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) and state CAFs to credit amounts collected by state governments and Union territory administrations to compensate for the loss of forest land to non-forest projects.