The Ministry of Finance has rejected the ambitious 'green fund' proposal from the Road Transport and Highways Ministry that seeks to set aside 1 per cent of project cost to provide green canopy along highways.
The ministry previously estimated that setting up such a green fund will entail an expenditure of Rs 5,000 crore.
"Social forestry stands allocated to the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change and not to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Also, that a Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) is in place at present which has accumulated funds of Rs 38,000 crore already," the Finance Ministry said while saying no to the proposal.
CAMPA falls under the domain of the Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change, the ministry said, adding that the government has already introduced a Bill in Parliament to create a fund in the Public Account and transfer the accumulated funds.
"As the activities of CAMPA are very closely related to what is being proposed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, establishment of a separate fund may result in overlap of responsibilities, besides unnecessary parking of funds when a large corpus is already available with CAMPA," the Finance Ministry said in a communication to the Highways Ministry while explaining its decision.
Asking the Highways Ministry to obtain approval of the Cabinet or Cabinet Committee if it still feels the need for a separate fund or SPV, the ministry said the decision involved other ministries too.
The rejection of proposal has come as a blow to the Highways Ministry which has already signed several pacts in this regard after Union Minister Nitin Gadkari last year unveiled the Green Highways Policy, 2015.
At the launch, Gadkari had said this would not only result in greening of the highways, but result in substantial job creation for rural youth.
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