Ministry of Environment could utilise only 27 per cent funds for ‘Climate Change Action Plan’

Karam Prakash

New Delhi, March 16

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, could utilise only 27 per cent of the funds allocated to the ministry — in the year 2022-23 for the ‘Climate Change Action Plan.’

The low utilization of the funds, under the ‘Action Plan,’ was revealed in the Parliamentary standing committee report on Demands for Grants (2023-2024) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change tabled in Rajya Sabha, on Wednesday.

The Union government had launched the ‘Climate Change Action Plan’ in 2008 to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impact of climate change.

The committee report further revealed that the fund utilization under National Mission for Green India — which aims at protecting, restoring and enhancing India’s forest cover — was only 55 percent.

Similarly, the Ministry has been able to utilize only 30 per cent of the funds allocated under Project Tiger and Project Elephant combined, as revealed in the committee report.

“The Committee is astonished to observe that across crucial initiatives like the Climate Change Action Plan and National Mission for Green India, the utilisation of funds has been grossly suboptimal at 27 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively. Further, the Ministry has been able to utilise only 30 per cent of the funds allocated to it under Project Tiger and Project Elephant combined,” observed the committee in its report.

The Committee, in the report, expressed its deep anguish and disappointment towards the abysmally low utilization of funds

“While the reason, as stated by the Ministry, pertains to a procedural change in the disbursement of funds, the Committee views this suboptimal utilisation as an opportunity lost,” noted the committee.

The Committee recommended the Ministry to take strong, firm and quick actions to ensure that the funds under these heads were utilised to their fullest and that any shortfall in physical targets should be compensated in the ensuing financial year.