Greens see red over meagre funds for environment

NAGPUR: Though finance minister Arun Jaitley said he is committed to make development process as green as possible, environmentalists have criticized him for ignoring forest and wildlife sector in the budget, which lacks significant allotment for forestry, wildlife and environment sector.
“It will be difficult to save forests and wildlife areas which actually contribute water for industrial development and regulate climate for human health and agricultural growth,” said Kishor Rithe, president, Satpuda Foundation.
Under ‘Project Tiger’, this year the FM has allocated Rs136.46 crore only for around 50 tiger reserves in the country. In 2014-15, the allocation was Rs161.02 crore.
“While the number of tiger reserves has gone up, funds have been reduced. Shockingly, the budget doesn’t even make mention of forest and wildlife sector. Bleak days are ahead for wildlife and forests,” said Nitin Desai, Central India director of Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).
“While expressing firm commitment to spend huge money on creating infrastructure, the FM has failed to strike the balance by not allocating for protecting forest, wildlife and environment sector, which is supposed to be affected by infrastructural projects,” Rithe said.
Rithe added the only good move by FM is to gather ‘Clean Energy Cess’, but the money will be spent on ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ and effluent treatment plants. Its benefit will not leverage forestry, wildlife and environment sector. Another move to introduce ‘Carbon Tax’ on most petroleum products has not clearly stated how is it going to be spent.
On the contrary, Kaustav Chatterjee of Green Vigil says FM’s statement to make development process as green as possible is a welcome step. “I’m happy to note that renewable energy concept got a thumbs up in the budget. The government has revised its target of renewable energy capacity to 1.75 lakh MW till 2022. This comprises 1 lakh MW solar, 60,000MW wind, 10,000MW biomass and 5,000MW small hydro projects,” Chatterjee said.
Prafulla Bhamburkar, Central India adviser of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), said the budget gives more emphasis on road, railways and highways.
“It even gives precedence to conservation of cultural world heritage sites in India but have completely ignored the same for conservation of forest, sanctuaries and national parks which are lungs of the country,” said Bhamburkar.
“The Dream of making India Green has come to an end with this Budget 2015-16,” added Rithe. “Allocating more funds to other sectors might have forced FM to curtail funds from wildlife and forest heads,” he added.