India To Spend $6 Billion To Create New Forests

[Gibbs]

India To Spend $6 Billion To Create New Forests
6 May 2016, 10:03 am EDT By Rhodi Lee Tech Times

India plans to spend an equivalent of $6.2 billion to increase the country's green cover.

Earlier this week, lawmakers in the lower house have passed the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2015, which aims to increase the forest cover in the country from 21.34 percent of the total land to 33 percent.

The bill, which now awaits to be approved by the upper house, ensures the expeditious use of the unspent Rs 40,000 crore (about $6.2 billion), which has accumulated and lie idle with an ad-hoc central body for more than a decade, to create new forests.

The money comes from the amount paid to the government by companies and other entities since 2006 for letting them set up projects on forest land.

"This was the historic because for the last 12 years the funds meant for afforestation were deposited in only banks and were not used on the ground,"said India's Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.

"Our forest cover will dramatically increase and it will result in achieving our target 33 percent of tree cover and most importantly 2.5 billion tonne of carbon sink as we have indicated in our INDCs."

The world's forest are considered crucial in negating the impacts of over a quarter of man-made carbon emission but deforestation has become rampant with population growth worldwide.

Large-scale afforestation projects thus serve as an effective means of fighting man-made climate change.

While India is allotting what appears to be a large amount of money to create new forests, the returns could be far more beneficial in the long run.

Besides taking in planet-warming carbon dioxide, which helps in the fight against global warming, trees are known to provide a range of social, environmental and economic benefits. With its large population, for instance, India has been struggling with air pollution but trees can help absorb pollutants and improve air quality.

Forests also serve as a safe home and haven for many plants and animals and thus help in promoting biodiversity and in the management and conservation of wildlife. Forests also protect the watersheds.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, 1.6 billion people worldwide currently depend on forests for their livelihood.

- See more at: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/1...o-create-new-forests.htm#sthash.EplV06KJ.dpuf

 

[Gufi]

India plans to spend an equivalent of $6.2 billion to increase the country's green cover.

Best of luck will hopefully help with the massive drought situation also....

 

[A$HU]

Good. Hope they implement it successfully.

 

[Vyom]

Good. Hope they implement it successfully.

"We" not "they"

 

[New Resolve]

Good move if corruption doesnt get in the way.

 

[Ankit Kumar 002]

Kinda waste, these things should be done by countries with 100% literary and no hunger ...

This money be better utilised in building infrastructure which would further boost jobs.

 

[Kambojaric]

Good step. Should help with the pollution situation since as the population of the wider region grows, so will pollution levels.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Kinda waste, these things should be done by countries with 100% literary and no hunger ...

This money be better utilised in building infrastructure which would further boost jobs.

Forest is also a part of sustainable infrastructure. A society cannot prosper without harmony with the nature.

 

[Ankit Kumar 002]

Forest is also a part of sustainable infrastructure. A society cannot prosper without harmony with the nature.

At present the public sector mining companies are re for eating their used up and closed mines. That's enough for the moment .

We need much higher impetus on " Job creating " infrastructures.

Maybe 10 years down the line when less than 5% Indians are under BPL line , we can plan to re forest our 50% of land.

 

[Sky lord]

Kinda waste, these things should be done by countries with 100% literary and no hunger ...

This money be better utilised in building infrastructure which would further boost jobs.

They are not stopping work towards 100% literacy etc to only do tree planting. Governments have to multi task .

Good initiative.

 

[skyisthelimit]

Good idea, something like this should make it achieve quicker and efficiently.

 

[Ankit Kumar 002]

They are not stopping work towards 100% literacy etc to only do tree planting. Governments have to multi task .

Good initiative.

The problem is , there are more daunting tasks than planting more forests , and spending over 6 billion on it is ridiculous..

I live in a state where Coal is mined so that people in Delhi and Mumbai enjoy electricity , while our capital city struggles for 20 hours of electricity , forget about rural areas.

Its estimated that 1/20th part of electricity which Mumbai today uses is more than enough to light up whole of Jharkhand , double the production capacity of Bauxite , Iron and Coal and push up the GDP growth hear to near 25%(Of Jharkhand ).

Now that's very big number.

6.2 Billion pumped into such examples will return Billions more + More skilled manpower , which will still give us more resources at a stage when we are sufficiently industrialised to get 50% of our areas under forest cover.

Spending this money now is just delaying the time a tribal here will get electricity , a health insurance and safety from threats.

And no one can decide on the behalf of that tribal who works 18 hour a day in mines with his children wasting their lives learning to do the same !

 

[Sky lord]

The problem is , there are more daunting tasks than planting more forests , and spending over 6 billion on it is ridiculous..

I live in a state where Coal is mined so that people in Delhi and Mumbai enjoy electricity , while our capital city struggles for 20 hours of electricity , forget about rural areas.

Its estimated that 1/20th part of electricity which Mumbai today uses is more than enough to light up whole of Jharkhand , double the production capacity of Bauxite , Iron and Coal and push up the GDP growth hear to near 25%(Of Jharkhand ).

Now that's very big number.

6.2 Billion pumped into such examples will return Billions more + More skilled manpower , which will still give us more resources at a stage when we are sufficiently industrialised to get 50% of our areas under forest cover.

Spending this money now is just delaying the time a tribal here will get electricity , a health insurance and safety from threats.

And no one can decide on the behalf of that tribal who works 18 hour a day in mines with his children wasting their lives learning to do the same !

You have some nice arguments.

Couple of points though....a society has a saturation point for funds it can absorb. So throwing huge amounts of money at your state won't necessarily make development instantaneous.

The reason you have problem with electricity is I am assuming due to debt incurred by the concerned department due to issues such as corruption, inefficiency etc. if you paid off all the debt you would temporarily be able to buy more electricity from the national grid but eventually the same thing would happen again. To fix the system is more difficult than just throwing money at the problem.

A the end of the day it takes time and putting one foot in front of the other over a long period of time to truly develop. There are no short cuts.

Remember the US has over a million homeless people. It is not due to lack of funds or lack of trying. We cannot stop everything to solve one thing.

 

[Ankit Kumar 002]

You have some nice arguments.

Couple of points though....a society has a saturation point for funds it can absorb. So throwing huge amounts of money at your state won't necessarily make development instantaneous.

The reason you have problem with electricity is I am assuming due to debt incurred by the concerned department due to issues such as corruption, inefficiency etc. if you paid off all the debt you would temporarily be able to buy more electricity from the national grid but eventually the same thing would happen again. To fix the system is more difficult than just throwing money at the problem.

A the end of the day it takes time and putting one foot in front of the other over a long period of time to truly develop. There are no short cuts.

Remember the US has over a million homeless people. It is not due to lack of funds or lack of trying. We cannot stop everything to solve one thing.

I am not saying to stop. I am saying to slow down on it. 6 Billion is a big amount. A very big one.
It can add 3 Ultra Mega Power plants each with 4000 MW capacity , enough to take care of electricity needs of Jharkhand and North East.
Do these areas not deserve the right to develop ?

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

I am not saying to stop. I am saying to slow down on it. 6 Billion is a big amount. A very big one.
It can add 3 Ultra Mega Power plants each with 4000 MW capacity , enough to take care of electricity needs of Jharkhand and North East.
Do these areas not deserve the right to develop ?

I can think of a better expenditure that could be foregone so your province can get funding for infrastructure. Its to do with many billions of dollars and France and a certain exorbitant deal....

6.3 billion on forest is money well spent.