Arunachal Pradesh Agriculture Minister Wanki Lowang on Monday said that the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) fund received from the Centre recently will immensely help in making this Himalayan state more green.
Wanki Lowang, on behalf of Chief Minister Pema Khandu had received the amount of Rs 1588.72 crore under CAMPA from union Forest and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar at New Delhi on August 29 last.
“CAMPA aims at compensatory afforestation and other green activities, including prevention of forest fire, biodiversity management and soil conservation,” Lowang said, adding Arunachal Pradesh with 82 per cent forest coverage and second largest forest cover in India after Mizoram having 90.38 per cent of forest cover to geographical area, as per ‘India State of Forest Report 2013’.
The present central government has taken conscientious steps to minimize the inevitable impacts of climate change, a major global concern among the environmentalists, the minister said, adding India’s total forest cover is 708,273 sqkm, 21.54 per cent of its total geographical area.
“But, India has added 6,778 sq km of forest cover between 2015 and 2017 and extended 1, 243 sqkm more of tree cover by February 16, 2018, as per Forestry Survey of India-2017,” he said.
Other NE states to receive fund under CAMPA includes, Assam (Rs 560 crore), Sikkim (Rs 392 crore), Tripura (Rs 183.65 crore) and Mizoram (Rs 212.98 crore).