Environmental Policy in India

Environment

The UPA Government has approved “Green India”, a programme for massively afforesting 60 lakh hectares of degraded forest land in the next ten years, beginning with work on 30 lakh hectares.
For this purpose, introduction of legislation to set up a Compensatory Afforestation Fund and a Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority has been approved.

The Government has acted with urgency on the issue of climate change and set up Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change to plan and implement appropriate strategies for mitigating and adapting to climate change.
A comprehensive National Action Plan on Climate Change is under preparation. India is willing to ensure that its per capita emissions shall at no time exceed the average per capita emissions of developed countries.
Under UPA-1- Under the Clean Development Mechanism, one third of projects registered globally are from India, the highest for any country.
These have the potential of facilitating investments of over Rs. 71,000 crore.

The National Green Tribunal has been established on 18.10.2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010 for effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests.
The Tribunal’s dedicated jurisdiction in environmental matters shall provide speedy environmental justice and help reduce the burden of litigation in the higher courts. The Tribunal is mandated to make and endeavour for disposal of applications or appeals finally within 6 months of filing of the same.

• The Government has established the National Tiger Conservation Authority to strengthen tiger conservation and has set up the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.
• The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was launched by the Prime Minister on 11th January 2010.
• The mission has set an ambitious target of creating a capacity of 20,000 MW grid solar power, 2000 MW off-grid solar applications and 20 million square metre of solar thermalollectors by the year 2022.
• One of the objectives is to reduce cost of solar power so that grid parity can be reached by the end of the mission period.Research & development activities will also be given a major boost under the mission.
• The Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change has  started the implementation of the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE).
• To operationalise the NMEEE, the Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), a joint venture company, has been set up with equity investment of Rs. 190 crore by four participatingcentral public sector units.
• The Council has also approved “in principle” the draft mission documents of the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem and the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change.