The court directed a panel of experts to release Rs 1,000 crore every year for five years for reclaiming forest land devastated by mining and other industries.
The panel -- Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority, or Campa -- has collected about Rs 11,000 crore over five years from entities conducting non-forest work in forest areas.
Spurred on by Friday's order, the Ministry of Environment & Forests intends to increase the area under forest coverage from 19 per cent, which it has been several years, to 33 per cent, which has been the target for half a century.
"We will use this money to treble the pace of reforestation. After this order, money is not a problem. What we need to look at is management. We will need innovative management techniques to achieve this goal," an upbeat Jairam Ramesh, minister of state (independent charge) for environment & forests, told Business Standard.
A 'forest bench' of the Supreme Court has been passing path-breaking judgments for 14 years. It had earlier banned cutting of trees in several states like Assam and Karnataka, shut down Kolar gold mines, and imposed tough conditions on the Vedanta-sponsored Orissa aluminium project.
Campa was set up by the Supreme Court in an ongoing public interest litigation seeking to preserve forests in the country and reclaim lost forest land in all states. It had asked companies, like plywood companies, and others carrying on non-forest work in forest areas to contribute to a fund to compensate for the damage to ecology. Later the court set up an ad hoc body under Campa to recover money from erring industries.
Ramesh, soon after he took charge of the ministry on May 29, began a review of the Campa issue. He was concerned that the guidelines had no role for the Union government, nor did they accord the requisite priority to protection and regeneration of forests. He suggested a section that addressed these issues.
The ad hoc Campa authority, at its first meeting on July 3, decided to submit the new documents to the Supreme Court for further orders. It also recommended the release of Rs 1,000 crore a year for five years to the state Campas. Four days later, an affidavit was filed on behalf of the ministry seeking disbursement of funds.
Friday's order by a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan asks the ad hoc fund managers to release periodic amounts to the states for afforestation work.
