India’s ambitious Green India Mission has fallen significantly short of its targets, according to a new CAG report tabled in Parliament.
Between 2015-16 and 2024-25, the government had set a target of increasing forest cover across 1.4 million hectares. However, only 0.03 million hectares recorded an increase in forest cover — a massive 97.57 per cent shortfall.
The improvement in forest cover quality was also far below target. Against the target of 1.4 million hectares, improvement was observed in only 0.11 million hectares, reflecting a 91.87 per cent shortfall.
The CAG examined the implementation of the mission across 16 states and Union Territories. It pointed to poor convergence with schemes such as CAMPA and MGNREGS, along with problems in financial management and monitoring.
The audit also found that 70 per cent of sampled sites showed no noticeable changes attributable to the Green India Mission. In some cases, achievements were allegedly overstated due to non-validated data and GIS analysis.
The findings raise serious questions over the implementation and monitoring of the decade-old mission.
