Green India Mission (GIM): CAG Audit Findings, Gaps & Way Forward

Subject: GS 3: Environment

Context: A recent CAG performance audit has flagged major gaps in the Green India Mission (GIM).

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Key Findings of the CAG Report

• Forest Cover: Against the target of increasing forest cover over 1.4 million hectares, only 0.03409 million hectares showed improvement, implying a 97.57% shortfall.
• Forest Quality: Against the target of improving forest-cover quality over 1.4 million hectares, improvement occurred over only 0.11384 million hectares, reflecting a 91.87% shortfall.
• Funding Gap: Although ₹10,600 crore was proposed as funding support, only ₹1,149.14 crore was received through budgetary support during the audited period.
• Weak Convergence: Planned convergence with CAMPA, MGNREGS, Nagar Van Yojana and School Nursery Yojana was inadequately implemented, with schemes often functioning in silos.
• Financial Controls: 8 States/UTs did not maintain annual accounts, while several other accounts were unaudited or contained discrepancies.
• Weak Carbon Assessment: Only Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assessed carbon sequestration from GIM interventions during the audit period.
• Poor Ground Impact: GIS analysis found that around 70% of sampled sites showed no noticeable GIM-attributable changes.

About Green India Mission (GIM)

• The Green India Mission (GIM), officially the National Mission for a Green India, is a flagship initiative focused on forest conservation, restoration and ecosystem resilience. 
  • It is one of the eight missions under India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).
• Ministry: Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
• Launch: GIM was launched in 2014, with implementation activities beginning from 2015-16.
• Approach: It adopts a landscape-based approach to protect, restore and enhance forest and tree cover.
• Target: 
  • Forest Target: It aims to increase forest and tree cover over 5 million hectares and improve the quality of another 5 million hectares.
  • Livelihood Target: It seeks to enhance the livelihoods of around 3 million forest-dependent households through increased income from forest-based activities.
• Significance: It was also important for India’s commitment under the Paris Agreement to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5–3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2030. 

India’s Climate Commitments

• Paris Agreement: GIM contributes to India’s climate strategy under the Paris Agreement.
• NDC Target: India has committed to creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5–3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2030 through additional forest and tree cover.
• Long-Term Strategy: Forest and tree-cover enhancement forms an important component of India’s Long-Term Low-Carbon Development Strategy.
• Multiple Benefits: Forests simultaneously support carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, water regulation, soil conservation and climate resilience.
• National Forest & Tree Cover: According to ISFR 2023, forest and tree cover together constituted 25.17% of India’s geographical area, comprising 21.76% forest cover and 3.41% tree cover.

Concerns that Need to be Tackled

• Plantation vs Restoration: Mere plantation numbers do not necessarily translate into healthy, biodiverse and resilient forests.
  • ISFR 2023: Green cover rose by 1,445 sq km, but only 156 sq km was within recorded forests; 1,289 sq km came from tree cover outside forests, highlighting increasing tree cover but weakening natural forest quality.
• Fragmented Governance: Multiple schemes with overlapping objectives can create duplication and implementation silos.
• Funding Uncertainty: Inadequate and delayed funding can prevent programmes from achieving their intended scale.
• Weak Outcome Monitoring: Monitoring often focuses on area planted rather than survival, forest quality, biodiversity and carbon outcomes.
• Climate Mismatch: Restoration investments may fail to prioritise high-risk and climate-vulnerable landscapes.
• Transparency & Accountability: Weak accounting, auditing and public disclosure can undermine financial accountability.

Way Forward

• Landscape-Level Convergence: Integrate GIM with CAMPA, MGNREGS, Nagar Van Yojana and other restoration programmes through common plans.
• Outcome-Based Funding: Link expenditure to measurable outcomes such as survival rates, canopy improvement, biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
• Climate-Smart Restoration: Prioritise highly vulnerable, degraded and ecologically significant landscapes.
• Technology-Based Monitoring: Combine GIS, remote sensing, field verification and public dashboards for transparent monitoring.
• Ecological Approach: Promote native species, natural regeneration and ecosystem restoration instead of plantation-centric targets.
• Community Participation: Strengthen Gram Panchayats, local communities and forest-dependent households in planning and implementation.
• Financial Governance: Ensure timely funding, annual accounts, independent audits and transparent utilisation certificates.

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Conclusion

The CAG findings underline that forest restoration cannot be measured merely by money spent or saplings planted. GIM must evolve towards integrated, outcome-oriented and community-based ecological restoration to deliver India’s climate, biodiversity and livelihood objectives.

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