Christened the ‘Krishi Aranya Protsaha Yojane’ (Farm Forest Incentive Scheme), the scheme rewards beneficiaries with cash incentives for plants, which survive for the first three years after planting them in the fields.
The scheme, to start with, is restricted to only four varieties of plants — honge, neem, bamboo and teak. The scheme being implemented from the current financial year 2011-12 is available under both the Territorial Forestry division and the Social Forestry division.
Those intending to be part of the scheme will get saplings at a discount rate from forest nurseries and plant them in their fields or open areas. Every surviving tree will be eligible for a cash incentive. A farmer can plant a maximum of 400 saplings in one hatcher of land for claiming the incentive.
Each plant, which survives for a year after planting, will fetch an incentive of Rs 10 a plant. At the end of the second year, if the plant survives, the incentive will be Rs 15, and for plants surviving for the third year, the incentive will be Rs 20. The survival period will be counted from the month of June, the first month of south-west monsoon, when saplings are generally planted on a large scale.
The scheme is open to farmers, members of the public, NGOs and associations. They can obtain any number of saplings, subject to availability from the forest department at a lower price.
The prospective beneficiaries have to register their names in the jurisdictional range forest office of the department, or in the gram panchayat office. The enrolment is open only on Mondays and the last date is July 31. While enrolling, each beneficiary will have to pay a registration fee of Rs 10.
The sapling, packed in a polythene bags of 5x8 and 6x9 inch, will be supplied at Re 1 each, 8x12 inch bags at Rs 3, and 10x16 inch and 14x20 inch bags at Rs 5. The new scheme may provide some greenery in districts like Gulbarga where forest cover is as low as three per cent of the total geographical area.
The National Forest Policy aspires to have 33 per cent of the geographical area under the forest cover. In Gulbarga district, 94,000 saplings are available — 69,000 under the Social Forestry Division and 25,000 under the Territorial Forestry Division.