MoEF failed to protect environment: Public Accounts Committee

Forest cover of India is just 21 per cent against the target of 33 per cent set by Planning Commission for 2012

Published on:

05 May 2012, 9:44 am

The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has castigated the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for failing in its mandate to protect the environment of the country. In a report presented to the Lok Sabha on April 27, the committee has highlighted serious shortcomings in the implementation of environment protection programmes and in the functioning of various institutions under the ministry that are working on afforestation, biodiversity conservation, pollution control and environmental education.

The report highlighted the poor completion rate of projects under various schemes of the ministry. What's more, there is little assurance that funds released were utilised for the purpose for which they were sanctioned, the report said. The report pointed out that between 2003 and 2008, a total of 647 projects of afforestation costing Rs 59.48 crore were sanctioned by the National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board (NAEB) of the ministry. Out of this, only 20 projects could be completed and only 5.65 per cent of the total Rs 47.03 crore released for all the projects were spent on these completed projects. In the rest of the cases, the voluntary agencies supposed to execute the projects vanished after receiving either the first or the second installment.

PAC's findings

Between 2003 and 2008, a total of 647 afforestation projects were sanctioned by the National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board (NAEB), but only 20 projects could be completed and only 5.65 per cent of the total Rs 47.03 crore released for all the projects were spent
In many cases, voluntary agencies and NGOs supposed to execute afforestation projects vanished after receiving either the first or the second installment
Precious, diverse species have been taken away by unscrupulous foreign scientists, botanists and businessmen, causing incalculable damage to India's biodiversity and irretrievable loss to the national exchequer
Against the 14,000 people's biodiversity registers (PBRs) required to be maintained, only 1,121 registers had been started by October, 2011
No monitoring cell in place to track information regarding the grant of intellectual property rights outside India on many biological resources obtained from India
No survey of different ethnic groups associated with usage of plant species for different purposes has been done by the Botanical Survey of India after 1990

Loot in the name of afforestation

Biodiversity drain

Irregularities in Eco-city Programme

National museum history in a shambles

Convention On Biological Diversity (CBD)