Odisha: Annual Plan Of Rs 1044 Crore For 2024-25 Submitted For CAMPA Approval

Bhubaneswar: The Annual Plan of Operation (APO) for 2024-25 with an outlay of Rs 1044.47 crore has been presented for approval of Odisha’s Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management & Planning Authority (CAMPA).

The APO was presented at a meeting of the state-level steering committee meeting of CAMPA on Thursday. The outlay has been proposed for mandatory activities like plantation maintenance, compensatory afforestation, implementation of Regional Wildlife Management Plan, site specific wildlife projects, regeneration of degraded bamboo, forest protection, fire prevention, wildlife management, AJY, infrastructure, research and capacity building.

The outlay has been prepared basing on the funds available with State Authority and the proposals received from implementing divisions. Proposed area for compensatory afforestation in APO 2024-25 is 7174.203 hectare (ha). New plantation under Artificial Regeneration (AR) will be 17197 ha and under Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) 1675.5 ha.

Chairing the review meeting, Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena advised to use drone technology to study forest cover mapping before and after plantation after one year and subsequent years.

PCCF & HOFF Debidatta Biswal outlined the issues and expenditure of APO for 2023-24, fund position of CAMPA, formulation of APO-2024-25 and activities of APO in the meeting.

He said 14 APOs have been formulated and implemented so far. While 15th APO is under implementation, APO 2024-25 is the 16th in the series. The cumulative outlay from APO from 2021 to 2024 was Rs 3230.32 crore of which Rs 3041.17 crore was approved by National Authority (CAMPA). Of the approved outlay, Rs 2397.99 crore has been incurred.

It was also revealed that expenditure under APO 2023-24 as on December 31, 2023 has been Rs 644.53 crore. Major activities that were carried out include compensatory afforestation, integrated wildlife management programme, wildlife management, plantation under NPV, Bamboo regeneration, Forest protection and Forest Fire prevention, Ama Jangal Yojana, Infrastructure Development, Forest IT & Geometrics, Monitoring and evaluation, silvicultural research, production of QPM etc.

Development Commissioner Anu Garg; ACS, Revenue, Forest, Environment & Climate Change Department Satyabrat Sahu; Principal Secretary, Finance Vishal Kumar Dev; Principal Secretary, PR & DW Sushil Kumar Lohani; Principal Secretary, RD, I & PR Sanjay Kumar Singh; Principal Secretary, SC & Tech Chithra Arumugam, PCCF (Wildlife) Sushant Nanda and other members of the Committee participated in the discussion.