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

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has revealed that the Green India Mission (GIM) has failed to achieve its targets, with forest cover improvement falling short by an alarming 98% over a decade of implementation (2015-16 to 2024-25). In its performance audit report presented in Parliament, the CAG highlighted several reasons behind the mission's shortcomings, including the improper selection of landscapes for planting trees, lack of convergence among various schemes, financial mismanagement, poor planning, inadequate coordination, and deficient monitoring.

The mission aimed to increase forest/tree cover, improve the quality of forest/non-forest lands, enhance ecosystem services such as biodiversity, hydrological services, and carbon sequestration, and boost forest-based livelihoods for communities living near forests. However, the CAG report found that only 0.11 million hectares (mha) of forest cover quality enhancement was achieved, which is nearly 92% short of the target of 1.4 mha.

Similarly, only 0.03 mha of additional forest cover was observed, representing a 98% shortfall of the goal.

Additionally, the CAG pointed out that vulnerable landscapes were often selected for afforestation under the Mission, despite prioritizing areas that were more susceptible to the impacts of climate change. The audit also revealed that 14 states did not provide the required public web links for transparency, further exacerbating the lack of accountability and oversight.

The performance evaluation also indicated inflated data and overstated achievements, with Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis showing that 70% of the sites sampled had no noticeable changes attributable to the GIM.