SC ties Centre's hand in using Rs 9,000-cr afforestation fund

NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister's pet "Green India" project may have taken a hit on Wednesday as the Supreme Court stopped the Centre from using even a penny from the Rs 9,000 crore afforestation fund taking into account the states' demand that they should be the real beneficiaries of this money. This fat corpus was created by contributions for afforestation purposes collected mandatorily on apex court orders from numerous owners, both private and government, who utilised forest land for setting up projects. Since 2004, these funds have been steadily growing under an adhoc Compensatory Afforestation Funds Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) with states sending it the money collected from the project owners. Amicus curiae and senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing before the Forest Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Arijit Pasayat and S H Kapadia, said the forest land was diverted in the states and hence the money with CAMPA should naturally go back to the states for undertaking compensatory afforestation activities. Solicitor General G E Vahanvati said the Centre has placed the Compensatory Afforestation Funds Bill, 2008, on the floor of Parliament proposing to spend the money mainly in the states for afforestation purposes while utilising a small amount for similar activities on an all India basis. He said the Lok Sabha passed the Bill in December 2008 and the Rajya Sabha was debating on it on Wednesday. Salve, with other amicus curiae A D N Rao, joined issue with Vahanvati and said the funds had come from the diversion of forest land in the states and hence they should go back for afforestation there. The CAMPA funds could not be diverted to the PM's "Green India" project, he said. The Bench found a via media and said the states should give their site specific afforestation schemes to the adhoc CAMPA within four weeks and directed the central body to examine them in two weeks and give a report to the apex court. But, it ordered that till the time the issue was settled, no money with CAMPA would be spent by the central body for any purpose.

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