CAMPA funds: How states are failing forests and wasting public money

The Supreme Court passed two consecutive orders, on February 3 and March 4, in response to a petition filed by retired Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers challenging the validity of the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023.

The first order prohibits the diversion of forest lands without providing for compensatory afforestation, while the second directs defaulting states and Union Territory (UT) administrations to constitute an expert committee within a month to identify deemed forests and prepare a GIS-based decision-support database as required under Rule 16(1) of the amendment rules.

The court further mandated that these expert committees submit their reports within six months, holding chief secretaries and UT administrators personally responsible for any failure to comply.

Earlier, in December 1996, the SC in the T N Godavarman had already directed states and UTs to constitute expert committees to identify and protect all wooded areas that are non-notified forests under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. However, in its latest affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on February 28, the Ministry of Environment revealed that some states have still not complied, despite the passage of nearly three decades.

Even after the Van (Sanrakshan evam Samvardhan) Rules, 2023 , made this identification mandatory, several states and UTs have continued to evade compliance.

Post-1996 orders, many states identified their deemed forests in the early 2000s. However, some later sought to de-notify these areas to facilitate development projects. In 2014, Karnataka moved to de-notify a bulk of its 10 lakh hectares of deemed forests that had been notified and shared with the Supreme Court. The state conducted a physical verification and claimed that the tree density had declined in many areas, leading to land degradation. By 2020, Karnataka cited this degradation as justification to reduce its deemed forest area to just three lakh hectares.

The ministry’s website reveals that seven states/UTs—Goa, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal— have not yet constituted an expert committee. Among the remaining 23 states, only 18 have followed the SC’s directives, and none have provided verifiable data on the identification, status, or location of unclassed forests in their jurisdiction. The discrepancies are stark:

Gujarat reported 192 sq km of unclassed forests, while the Forest Survey of India (FSI) identified 4577 sq km.

Assam reported 5,894 square km of unclassed forests, while the FSI’s figure is 8,532 sq km.

In Kerala, the ecologically sensitive Pallivasal and Chinnakanal un-reserves were excluded from the state’s report, leaving them unprotected under the Forest (Conservation) Act for nearly three decades. These areas have since been heavily plundered for tourism infrastructure. Further, Chinnakanal, an important elephant corridor, has seen rising human-elephant conflicts due to lack of legal protection.

The failure to implement the Godavarman judgement and properly consolidate forest lands across states has been a missed opportunity to achieve the National Forest Policy goal of 33% forest cover in plains and 66% in hilly regions.

The CAG’s 2020-2021 report on public fund utilisation in Uttarakhand has also drawn observations from the Supreme Court. The report revealed that the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds, which are meant for forest conservation and to mitigate the impact of forest land diversion were misused. Between 2017 and 2021, these funds were found diverted to buy mobile phones, computers, office decor, building renovations and even legal expenses. Moreover, compensatory afforestation, which should be completed within one or two years of receiving funds, was delayed by eight years. The report further flagged the low survival rate of plantations, which was only 33% as against the Forest Research Institute’s mandate of
at least 60-65%.

The misuse of CAMPA funds is not limited to Uttarakhand—several states have spent these funds on non-essential infrastructure, failing to mitigate the impact of forest diversion.

Though forest departments were revenue-yielding until the 1980s, investments in their infrastructure remained low. Until then, most forest divisions had only two left-hand-drive jeeps for mobility. It was only after divisional forest officers were empowered to conduct quasi-judicial proceedings and confiscate vehicles used in the illegal timber trade that the department acquired vehicles for enforcement.

From 2002 onwards, the net present value (NPV) of diverted forests was also collected from user agencies. By March 2024, the total CAMPA fund collected by the ministry was Rs 18,061.60 crore. However, states receive only a fraction of the interest accrued, while chief secretaries, who head CAMPA in each state, approve expenditure, including luxury purchases like iPhones and office renovations.

Studies have repeatedly shown
that compensatory afforestation is largely unsuccessful and that forest diversion leads to permanent losses in biodiversity, wilderness, and carbon sequestration potential.

We must stop plundering natural forests.

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force), Karnataka.)