SHILLONG: Meghalaya has received Rs 163.31 crore from the Centre under Compensatory Afforestation fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).
During a function in New Delhi on Friday, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar handed over the amount to state Forest and Environment Minister Lahkmen Rymbui.
Javadekar released over Rs.47,436 crore of CAMPA funds to various states after a meeting of state forest ministers and authorities held in New Delhi.
Javadekar said the state budget for forests will remain unaffected and the fund being transferred would be in addition to state budget and it is expected that all the states will utilise the fund towards forestry activities to achieve the objectives of the Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs) of increasing its forest and tree cover, which will create an additional carbon sink equivalent to 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by the year 2030.
He reiterated that the CAMPA funds cannot be used for payment of salary, travelling allowances, medical expenses and others.
Underlining the efforts of the Centre towards preserving and improving the forest wealth and ecological security of the country, Javadekar said, “Important activities on which the fund will be utilised will be for the compensatory afforestation, catchment area treatment, wildlife management assisted natural regeneration, forest fire prevention and control operations, soil and moisture conservation works in the forest, improvement of wildlife habitat, management of biological diversity and biological resources, research in forestry and monitoring of CAMPA works and others.
Earlier, after under-utilisation of the money collected towards compensatory afforestation, the Supreme Court had ordered for establishment of (CAMPA) in 2001.
In 2006, separate bank accounts were opened in which the compensatory levies were deposited and adhoc CAMPA was established for the management of compensatory afforestation fund
In 2009, the court permitted release of Rs 1000 crore every year to states/UTs for compensatory afforestation and other activities.
