CAG audit highlights major gaps in Green India Mission
Subject: GS ll-Indian Polity-Constitutional Bodies
Context
A comprehensive performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) covering 16 States and Union Territories between 2015–16 and 2024–25 has exposed glaring structural, financial, and implementation gaps in the Green India Mission (GIM). As a flagship initiative tasked with anchoring India’s international climate commitments, the findings raise urgent questions about the efficacy of execution and resource allocation.
About the Green India Mission (GIM)
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Origins: Launched in 2014 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), GIM is one of the eight core missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).
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Core Objectives: Designed to protect, restore, and enhance India’s forest cover while improving ecosystem services (biodiversity, water security, and carbon sequestration) and securing forest-based livelihoods.
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Quantified Targets: The Mission envisages increasing forest and tree cover by 5 million hectares, alongside improving the quality of forest cover over another 5 million hectares.
Major Findings of the CAG Audit
The audit revealed a severe disconnect between policy targets and ground-level execution, marked by staggering shortfalls:
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Massive Deficits in Targets vs. Achievement:
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Quality Improvement: Against a targeted goal of improving forest-cover quality across 1.4 million hectares, tangible improvement was recorded in only 0.11384 million hectares—a colossal 91.87% shortfall.
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Forest Cover Expansion: Against a target of increasing forest cover by 1.4 million hectares, expansion was achieved over merely 0.03409 million hectares, translating to a 97.57% shortfall.
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Severe Financial Starvation:
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GIM failed to secure ₹10,600 crore in proposed funding support, severely crippling its implementation scope.
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Out of the ₹2,000 crore approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for the initial years (plus ₹400 crore from 13th Finance Commission grants), only ₹1,149.14 crore (47.88%) was received through budgetary allocations across the 10-year audit period.
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Institutional Silos and Failed Convergence:
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The Mission was envisioned to synergize with complementary instruments like CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority) and MGNREGS to pool financial resources and local labor. However, effective convergence remained virtually non-existent.
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Allied initiatives like the Nagar Van Yojana (urban forests) and School Nursery Yojana operated entirely in administrative silos, missing opportunities for integrated ecological growth.
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Accounting and Governance Lapses:
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The audit flagged acute financial-management flaws, noting that eight States/UTs failed to maintain mandatory annual accounts, while others exhibited systemic discrepancies and unaudited expenditures.
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Implications for India’s Climate Goals
The poor performance of GIM carries direct ramifications for India’s international climate architecture:
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The Paris Agreement & NDCs: Enhancing forest and tree cover forms a foundational pillar of India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). India has formally committed to creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030.
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Policy Vulnerability: India’s Long-Term Low-Carbon Development Strategy explicitly depends on GIM to deliver these carbon sink targets. Chronic shortfalls in afforestation and quality enhancement directly threaten national climate credibility.
Conclusion and Way Forward
The CAG report serves as a critical wake-up call for environmental governance. To salvage the objectives of the Green India Mission, systemic course-correction is vital:
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Mandatory Inter-Agency Convergence: Institutionalizing strict operational links between GIM, MGNREGS, and CAMPA funds to eliminate resource starvation.
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Streamlining Financial Accountability: Enforcing rigorous, audited bookkeeping across state forest departments to prevent fund leakages.
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Decentralized Monitoring: Leveraging remote sensing, GIS tracking, and community-led social audits to transition from paper-based targets to verifiable, high-survival green cover on the ground.
