Quick Take | Greening the mission
According to The auditor general has lately, a key pillar of the government's climate action strategy has been teetering since inception. The Green India Mission, approved as a central scheme in 2014 and paraded as a flagship programme to protect…
What happened
According to The auditor general has lately, a key pillar of the government's climate action strategy has been teetering since inception. The Green India Mission, approved as a central scheme in 2014 and paraded as a flagship programme to protect and enhance India's forest cover, has fallen abysmally short of goals. An audit throughout 16 states and Union territories between 2015-16 and 2024-25 identified that only 5 percent of the mission's afforestation target had been met. The report lays the blame for this massive underperformance squarely at the door of the environment ministry. Its recommendations including bottom-up planning, better coordination, regular oversight and timely fund release must be urgently taken up. Otherwise, the administration will be guilty of paying lip service to one of the biggest disruptions of this age: climate change.
The bottom line
Taken together, the developments around quick Take point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.
