India to boost forests |
The Indian Cabinet gave its approval for introducing a new legislation in current session of the Parliament. The proposed law - Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2015 - seeks to create an institutional mechanism to properly utilize a corpus of Rs 38,000 crore for afforestation and other related works like wildlife care and ecological services under central and state monitoring authorities. Besides utilizing the unspent accumulated amount (Rs 38,000 crore), the new authorities -- which are to be set up both at the central and state levels -- will also monitor use of fresh accrual of an estimated Rs 6,000 crore per annum to newly created "non-lapsable interest bearing" funds. The bill is expected to be introduced in Parliament next week. Once the bill is passed, the fund will be distributed among the states and Union Territories (UTs) for aggressive afforestation under a central monitoring mechanism.
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