Social Forestry Schemes: Empowering Communities for Sustainable Forest Management

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change encourages plantation in the country including various metropolitan cities through programmes and schemes.

Various programmes namely Nagar Van Yojana, School Nursery Yojana, Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), National Afforestation Programme (NAP), National Mission for a Green India (GIM), etc. which promote urban forestry, tree plantation on vacant lands and bunds on farmlands, etc by involving local communities, NGOs, educational institutions, local bodies, etc.

With respect to urban areas, the Ministry is implementing the Nagar Van Yojana (NVY) the scheme initiated for the creation of Nagar Van in urban areas.

Under NVY 385 projects have been sanctioned so far which includes 26 numbers of projects in cities of Uttar Pradesh state.

The following additional steps taken by the Government contribute to the protection and development of forest areas in the country including in the metropolitan cities:

1. For the preservation and protection of forests and wildlife, various laws including the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, Indian Forest Act, 1927, Wildlife Protection Act 1972, and other central/state laws as applicable to a State/UT, are implemented by the respective State Government /UT Administration. The Ministry also provides financial support to the States /UTs under the Forest Fire Prevention and Management Scheme for protection against forest fire.

2. The Ministry has implemented National Afforestation Programme (NAP) for tree plantation in degraded forests through people’s participation which has been merged with National Mission for a Green India (GIM), under which, in addition to other submissions, there is a specific sub-mission for enhancing tree cover in urban and peri-urban areas. An area of over 2 million hectares was earmarked for taking up afforestation in the States/Union Territories (UTs) with an investment of about Rs. 3982 crores till 2022-23 under NAP since its launching in the year 2000. GIM activities were started in FY 2015-16. So far, a sum of Rs. 755.28 crores has been released to seventeen States and one union territory for the creation of a plantation over an area of 153125 ha. NAP has been merged with GIM and implemented as a single scheme at present.

3. Urban forestry is a permissible activity under the provisions of the Compensatory Fund Act, 2016 and the rules made thereunder. The Government of India has disbursed an amount of Rs. 51768.76 crores from the National Fund to 33 State funds as a share of respective states as per Compensatory Fund Act, 2016.

4. Further, tree plantation, being a multi-departmental, multi-agency activity, is also being taken up cross-sectorally under various programmes/funding sources of other ministries/ organizations and also through State Plan budgets.