By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, August 02, 2022: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has found concentration of plantation activities in easily accessible areas like land along the pathways, leaving the degraded patches in the middle of dense forest unplanted in Odisha — one of reasons cited for missing plantation target in the State.

The CAG came down heavily on the State government indicating that plantation undertaken by in the State did not result in improvement of degraded forest area and increase in forest cover to its full potential. Besides, the apex audit agency pointed out that the State did not have any data base on degraded land.

Odisha’s forest cover in the State is assessed as 51,619 sq. km, which is 33.15% of State’s geographical area as per India State of Forest Report 2019.

The performance audit of CAG says the shortfall in achievement of plantation targets during the period 2013-14 to 2017-18 ranged from11.98% to 50.89% under various types of plantations. During the period, the government had fixed a plantation target of 8,80,705 ha of area whereas it managed to carry out plantation only on 4,32,543 ha areas – shortfall by 50.89%.

“The acute shortfall in achievement of plantation targets during the period indicated fixation of unrealistic targets. Due to non-availability of data regarding degraded forest land and vacant revenue land, the planning procedure for plantations was limited to only instant data provided by field staff on a piece- meal manner,” it said.

“Aerial survey of the plantation sites using unmanned aerial vehicles revealed concentration of plantation activities in easily accessible areas like land along the pathways, leaving the degraded patches in the middle of dense forest unplanted,” the CAG says.

The audit agency further said as the database of degraded forest and non-forest land was not available with the department, target for compensatory afforestation programmes under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) was not achieved within the stipulated period of three years and hence, could not compensate the forest cover against the diversion of forest land.

Stating that the plantation programmes carried out under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Energy Guarantee Scheme remained unfruitful and failed due to improper selection of plantation sites in dense forest, the CAG blamed it to lack of coordination at the level of office Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) and District Rural Development Agencies in planning the plantation projects in a division.