COMPENSATORY AFFORESTATION AND MANAGEMENT PLANNING AUTHORITY (CAMPA)

Oct. 18, 2018

The Supreme Court has barred State governments from diverting money from their CAMPA funds meant for environmental protection, rehabilitation of displaced persons due to issues like depletion of forest, mining, etc.

About:

Currently, the compensatory afforestation (CA) funds, amounting to roughly Rs 50,000 crore, are with the ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).
The ad hoc CAMPA body was created by the order of Supreme Court in 2009. The CAMPA was created as National Advisory Council under the chairmanship of the environment minister for monitoring, technical assistance and evaluation of compensatory afforestation activities.
Currently, The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is in deliberation with the Ministry of Finance over the future of compensatory afforestation (CA) funds collected by the Centre.

The Recent order by Supreme Court came after realising that the Punjab government took Rs. 1.11 crore from CAMPA funds and to pay its lawyers and other legal expenses.

Source : The HIndu