CAG audit: Green India Mission fell 98% short of forest cover target
NEW DELHI: A performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has revealed that the Green India Mission (GIM), the government's flagship programme to increase and improve forest cover, fell far short of its targets over a decade. The report, tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, found that the increase in forest cover was nearly 98% below the target during the period 2015-16 to 2024-25.
The CAG examined the GIM's planning, implementation, and monitoring across 16 states and Union Territories. The audit highlighted several systemic lapses, including the selection of inappropriate landscapes for planting trees, lack of convergence with other schemes, financial mismanagement, improper planning, poor coordination, and deficient monitoring.
The mission's stated objectives included increasing forest and tree cover, improving the quality of forest and non-forest lands, enhancing ecosystem services such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration, and boosting forest-based livelihoods for households living near forests. However, the audit found that these goals were largely unmet.
According to the CAG report, against the target of improving forest cover quality on 1.4 million hectares (mha), improvement was observed on only 0.11 mha — a shortfall of nearly 92%. Similarly, against the target of increasing forest cover on 1.4 mha, only 0.03 mha saw an actual increase, a shortfall of approximately 98%.
The audit also flagged that landscapes with low to moderate priority were chosen for afforestation, even though vulnerability to climate change was a key criterion. This meant that areas most in need of intervention were often ignored.
Deficient monitoring was another major concern. The CAG noted that 14 states failed to provide the required public web links for transparency. Audit evaluations revealed inflated data and overstated achievements, with GIS analysis showing that 70% of sampled sites had no noticeable changes attributable to the mission.
These findings underscore the need for urgent corrective action in the implementation of the Green India Mission. The CAG's recommendations aim to address the gaps in planning, financial oversight, and monitoring to ensure that the mission's objectives are achieved in the future.
