CAG finds 98% shortfall in Green India Mission forest cover targets, red-flags multiple lapses

The Comptroller and Auditor General raised concerns about the inadequacies within the Green India Mission program, noting that the goal of increasing forest cover was far from realized over a decade. The audit pointed to significant issues in planning and financial oversight, which severely undermined the mission’s objectives. Key vulnerable areas were neglected during afforestation, diminishing efforts to combat climate change.

NEW DELHI: Red-flagging lapses in the country’s ongoing programme to increase and improve green cover, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pointed out non-achievement of forest cover targets, noting that the observed increase in forest cover fell short by nearly 98% during 10 years of implementation (2015-16 to 2024-25) of the Green India Mission (GIM).Releasing the performance audit report on the Mission, CAG highlighted the wrong choice of landscape for planting trees, absence of convergence of various schemes to increase green cover, financial mismanagement, improper planning, lack of coordination and deficient monitoring behind non-achievement of the GIM’s goals.The broad objectives under the Mission were to increase forest/tree cover, improve the quality of forest/non-forest lands, improve ecosystem services, including biodiversity, hydrological services and carbon sequestration because of forest land/non-forest land, and to increase forest-based livelihood income of households living in and around forests.Underlining its key audit findings, the CAG in its report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday said, “As against the target of 1.4 million hectares (mha), improvement of forest cover quality was observed in only 0.11 mha (nearly 92% shortfall). Similarly, an increase in forest cover was observed in only 0.03 mha as against the target of 1.4 mha (nearly 98% shortfall).”

It also noted that despite vulnerability being a key criterion, landscapes with low to moderate priority were selected over those more vulnerable to climate change for afforestation under the Mission.The performance audit examined the planning, implementation and monitoring of the GIM interventions in 16 states and UTs for which physical and financial targets were approved by the environment ministry during the period 2015-16 to 2024-25.Pointing out deficient monitoring, the CAG noted that 14 states even failed to provide required public web links for transparency. It flagged that audit evaluations revealed inflated data and overstated achievements, and GIS analysis showed that 70% of sampled sites had no noticeable changes attributable to GIM.