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Bhubaneswar, August 22: The Centre Monday sanctioned Rs 236 crore to the state government under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).
Union minister of state for environment, forest and climate change Anil Madhav Dave sanctioned the amount after meeting state forest and environment minister Bikram Keshari Arukh in New Delhi Monday.
The state government had submitted for the Centre’s approval a different annual plan of operations (APO) for 2015-16 with an outlay of `516.93 crore. The Centre has approved `236 crore in the first phase.
The state government had submitted the APO for the year to Center in April and recently Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wrote to the Union minister to sanction CAMPA fund.
Arukh requested Dave to approve the APOs for 2016-17 at the earliest. He urged the Union minister to treat state PSUs at par with central PSUs and Central agencies in terms of implementation of compensatory afforestation projects.
Arukh said a special dispensation has been allowed for the projects of central government and central government undertakings that allows raising of compensatory afforestation on degraded forest land on twice the extent of forest areas used. “The special dispensation given to the central PSU projects should be given to the projects owned by the state PSUs”, he urged. He further appealed to the Centre to extend the deadline for submission of forest diversion proposals by another year. The last date of submission of proposal was July 31, 2016.
Arukh also called for filling up at the earliest 47 vacancies in the 141 Indian Forest Service (IFS) sanctioned posts in the state. Besides, he also demanded special financial assistance for the state as all the schemes in which the Centre has cut its share.
