Decisive mandate for Modi Government helped India to step up climate change response
In the May 2014 general elections, after a gap of 24 years, a single party won the absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.
PM Modi gave the mantra of “sabka sath, sabka vikas” for governance. This helped in unveiling the pro-poor and gender sensitive schemes such as Ujjawala and Swachch Bharat, besides enactment of triple talaq legislation. India’s international stature also grew significantly. PM Modi retained power after the 2019 elections with BJP and its allies in the NDA winning 335 Lok Sabha seats.
On forest and environment conservation, it is worthwhile to assess the performance of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Policies of the Environment sector influence the success of several programmes of different Ministries. There is a mixed bag of assessment.
Soon after taking over the reign of administration the first thing the Ministry urgently needed was to ensure transparency in granting forest and environmental clearances. Transparency is the hallmark of corruption free governance. The Ministry apart from other steps had created a mechanism under the ‘Parivesh’ portal where all user agencies are supposed to apply online for environmental and forestry clearances. It has ensured transparency, accountability, and time bound performance and thus made the clearance process free from delay and red tape. Procedures were simplified for quick and professional examination of proposals. The changes ensured access of services to all sections of the people. While the poor people in the villages got quick clearances at the Regional offices/DFO levels for schools, police outpost, hospitals and other developmental works, the industries and other public utility sectors, necessary for infrastructure and development like water schemes, dams, electricity and mining, got timely clearances, which were earlier delayed for several years.
In a major reform, the Ministry in 2021 re-organized its regional offices by restructuring the manpower, besides constituting regional empowered committees so that interface with people and state governments improves for better governance and cut delays.
The Forest Survey of India recorded an 8021 square km increase in overall forest and tree cover amounting to one percent jump in forest and tree cover during 2015 to 2017. Similarly, the trend continued during 2019 to 2021 when the forest and tree cover in the country increased by 2261 square km, taking the country’s forest and tree cover to 80.9 million hectares with 24.62 per cent of the geographic area. The tiger population in the country has witnessed a steady increase from 2226 in 2014 to 2967 in the latest assessment.
The Compensatory Afforestation and Management Authority (CAMPA) Amendment Bill was languishing for a long time. The government brought accountability and streamlined the use of CAMPA funds, amounting more than Rs 80,000 crore. More than Rs 48,000 crore was released by December 2021 to 32 States which will give impetus to increase the forest cover.
The welfare of more than 10 crore tribal people is at the core of the policy making of the government. The Ministry has signed a memorandum with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to sort out the emerging issues between the two Ministries in the implementation of Forest Right Act 2006. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs in 2018 launched the ‘Van Dhan’ scheme in 2018 through TRIFED. This cross cutting scheme aims at increasing the income of tribal people engaged in the collection of Minor Forest Products (MFPs) through value addition of the products through Minimum Support Price (MSP) & Development of value Chain for MFPs in 340 districts of 27 states through 3225 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras to 10 lakh tribals.
On the international stage, PM Modi has assumed the leadership role in the field of climate change negotiations and India is the voice of developing countries. India has solid achievements in the field of combating climate change. The Prime Minister jointly with French President Emanuel Macron created an International Solar Alliance to combat climate change. India has achieved its voluntary target of reducing emissions intensity of its GDP by 21 per cent over 2005 levels by 2020 and is poised to achieve 35 per cent reduction well before the target year of 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2070. India is home to 17 percent of the world population but our emission footprint is only 4 per cent compared with the developed world’s 60 per cent with 17 per cent population.
However, on the flip side the Ministry has fallen in the trap of a few foreign agencies by promoting certification of government forests. It will compromise the sovereignty of the country on our natural resources and the Prime Minister as well as External Affairs Minister must caution the Environment Minister from ‘acting penny wise pound foolish’.
(The author is former Director-General, ICFRE, and Chancellor, FRI Deemed University, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change)
