Green India Mission: Targets, CAG Findings and Revised 2021-2030 Plan
Why in the news
The auditor found serious gaps in the mission, while a revised plan issued in 2025 sets bigger restoration goals tied to India’s Paris pledge.
Key facts
- Parent plan: National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008); mission conceived 2010, launched 2014, implemented from 2015-16.
- Ministry: Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
- Target: 5 million hectares added + 5 million hectares upgraded = 10 million hectares.
- Livelihoods: raise forest-based incomes of about 3 million households.
- Paris pledge: additional sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes CO2e by 2030.
About the mission
- Aim: protect, restore and enhance dwindling forest cover while handling climate change through adaptation and mitigation.
- Goals include better biodiversity, hydrological services and carbon sequestration.
- Run through State Forest Departments, Joint Forest Management Committees and gram sabhas using landscape-level planning.
- Money comes from its own budget plus convergence with MGNREGS, CAMPA, the National Afforestation Programme and state schemes.
- Works: assisted natural regeneration, planting on degraded forest, agro-forestry, social forestry, mangrove and wetland revival, city greening, fuel-wood substitutes.
Concerns (CAG)
- Inadequate funding against the mission’s own estimates.
- Weak coordination between schemes, which is where convergence falls short.
- Poor monitoring of plantations.
- Shortfalls in forest area and quality targets.
Significance
- Cover stands near 25% of land area (ISFR 2023: 25.17%), short of the 33% goal in National Forest Policy 1988.
- Among India’s three principal NDC pledges under the Paris Agreement is a forest carbon sink.
Exam angle
- The seven other NAPCC missions: Strategic Knowledge, Sustainable Agriculture, Himalayan Ecosystem, Water, Sustainable Habitat, Enhanced Energy Efficiency and Solar.
- GIM versus CAMPA: GIM is a planned restoration mission and can draw on CAMPA money; CAMPA holds compensatory afforestation funds from projects diverting forest land.
- Remember: 10 million hectares, 3 million households, launch 2014.