First installment of CAMPA to be released to eight States today

New Delhi, Aug 18 (ANI): The first installment of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) will be disbursed to eight states in the country today.

The states who have opened their State CAMPA account will receive this fund.

These states are Uttarakhand, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Goa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Assam.

Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said as per CAMPA guidelines, states who have opened their CAMPA accounts will get electronic transfer of the fund.

Ramesh said the forest sector is getting historic opportunity to get funds from six different channels.

Apart from the CAMPA, it is the NAREGA, intensification of infrastructure management, traditional national afforestation programme and integrated development of wildlife habitats.

Besides regeneration of forests, this amount will be used for human resources development, recruitments of new posts and data management.

It is the State who has to decide how much funds it can absorb for regeneration and betterment of forests and allied sectors, Ramesh said.

He also appealed to come out of the mindset to bring 33 per cent of geographical area under forests.

He explained that we should now concentrate on regeneration of degraded forest area in such a way that it migrates to medium density forest cover, medium density forest area to high density area and put efforts for conservation and preservation of high density forest area which will turn into heavy carbon sink.

Presentations were made on the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, new scheme initiatives, strategies for increasing forest and tree cover, Tribal Right Act and wildlife conservation.(ANI)