Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar released the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) on Monday in New Delhi.
"In the present assessment, the total forest and tree cover of the country is 80.73 million hectares which is 24.56 per cent of the geographical area of the country," said Javadekar at the event.
"There has been an increase in forest cover in Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh in the last two years," he added.
The Union Minister further added that the Mangrove cover has been separately reported in ISFR 2019 as 4,975 sq km. An increase of 54 sq Km has been observed as compared to 2017. Top three states showing an increase are Gujarat (37 sq km) followed by Maharashtra (16 sq km) and Odisha (8 sq km).