SHIMLA: Plantations were shown where thick forests already stood. That is the shocking lead from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on Himachal Pradesh’s forest department.
The audit has nailed the racket of “plantation on paper,” exposing how crores were spent without any ground reality.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu tabled the report in the Vidhan Sabha. It covers the period from April 2016 to March 2021. The CAG says officials misused government money and recommended strict action against those responsible.
Scam in plantations
Nearly 47% of the plantations were carried out in dense forests. Another 83% were raised outside degraded forests, defeating the very purpose of afforestation. Site selection was done without scientific study. In short, the plantations were a sham.
Nine plantation sites uploaded on the e-Green Watch portal were also fake. Files that were supposed to show Himachal locations actually belonged to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. For example, a file of Seraj in 2020 was traced to Batauli in Chhattisgarh.
Funds wasted
The audit lists massive financial leakage:
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₹169.73 crore remained unspent between 2016 and 2022.
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₹6.51 crore was diverted for eco-parks.
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Delays cost an extra ₹8.72 crore.
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₹12.09 crore for Atal Tunnel debris restoration lay unused for 13 years.
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Over ₹3 crore was never recovered from user agencies.
Together, nearly ₹180–190 crore was wasted or misused.
Old game, new schemes
Since 2002, Himachal has spent nearly ₹2,000 crore on plantations, covering more than 2.3 lakh hectares. But studies show 40% of plantations came up where tree cover already existed. Only 14% went to degraded land.
Yet, the government is rolling out new drives. Trees will be planted on 9,000 hectares in 2025, with 60% being fruit trees. A ₹100-crore Rajiv Gandhi Van Samvardhan Yojna, a Green Adoption scheme with corporates, and a state-supported biochar project have also been announced.
The question
The CAG has warned: without strong checks, these schemes too will turn into paper plantations. Himachal cannot afford forests only in files and crores lost in scams.
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