PM panel gives nod to Green India Mission

The Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change on Wednesday approved the Green India Mission,an ambitious Rs 46,000-crore programme aimed at increasing India’s forest cover by five million hectares over next 10 years.

One of the eight missions under India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change,the Green India Mission also seeks to improve the quality of forest cover over another five million hectares of land. The mission will focus on improvement of ecosystem services,including biodiversity,hydrological services and carbon sequestration while also aiming to increase forest-based livelihood incomes for 3 million families.

India currently has about 70 million hectares under forests but about 40 per cent of this is degraded or bad quality forests.

The mission,to be executed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests,will ensure that by 2020,India’s forests would be able to capture 50 to 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually,offsetting about six per cent of India’s total emissions.