Home / Environment / CAG Slams Maharashtra Forest Dept: Mission Failure
CAG Slams Maharashtra Forest Dept: Mission Failure
5 Oct
Summary
- Maharashtra failed to meet most Green India Mission targets.
- No SFDA meetings held; state steering committee met once.
- Sapling survival rates dramatically lower than claimed.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has identified substantial failures in Maharashtra's implementation of the Green India Mission (GIM). Launched in 2014 by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the GIM aimed to enhance green cover across India.
Maharashtra's forest department was found to have missed nearly all its targets within the stipulated timeframe. Crucially, the State Forest Development Agency (SFDA) was never revamped as required, failing to hold any meetings between 2014-15 and 2024-25. The state steering committee, meant to guide planning bodies, convened only once in nine years.
Financial mismanagement was rampant, with funds claimed as utilized but not properly disbursed or accounted for. Sapling procurement records were incomplete, and many listed plantations were outside mission sites or dated after the planting occurred. Actual sapling survival rates were drastically lower than official claims, with some sites reporting zero survival.
Further compounding the failures, essential soil moisture conservation work, critical for sapling survival, was not undertaken at any of the 35 sites, representing a 100% shortfall. This lapse, alongside destruction by cattle and delayed payments to workers, contributed to the mission's near-total collapse.
