Himachal to unlock Rs 22.6k cr forest economy bet
Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh Forest Department has entered into a five-year MoU with the Bharti Institute of Public Policy at India's Indian School of Business to unlock the state's estimated Rs 22,600 crore untapped forest and pastoral economy potential. The partnership, signed by Chief Minister Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and the institute's Executive Director Professor Ashwini Chhatre, aims to employ science and technology in forest governance.
The CM highlighted the importance of this collaboration in fostering a strong rural economy and generating long-term opportunities around the state's forest resources. The initiative follows a recent joint forest inventory where over 500 forest guards gathered extensive data on tree-level records, species-tagged images, and satellite imagery, which was then analyzed using AI and machine learning.
The findings, compiled in a report titled 'Counting Green Wealth', identify five key bio-resources with a combined untapped value of Rs 22,600 crore. The MoU covers areas such as developing forest economies and community enterprises, creating a Forest Intelligence Platform, developing a grazing portal, and providing training for forest department personnel and producer companies.
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