Govt Notifies New Norms, Confines Green Credit Aid For Large Land Parcels 

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has now notified its new rules for earning Green Credits. The new rules talked about the calculations and criteria to become a beneficiary under the government’s Green Credit Programme with respect to tree plantations. 

As per the new notified rules, the minimum land parcel required for plantations under the scheme should be at least five hectares. The move will likely confine the benefits for large swathes of land and remove the benefits for smaller land parcels and farmers.

“The land parcel identified for plantation under paragraph 1 must be free from all encumbrances and must have a size of five hectares or above,” the norms said. 

It said that the state’s Forest Department would identify the degraded land parcels, including open forest and scrubland, wasteland and catchment areas under its control. These land parcels would be made available for tree plantation to promote activities for increasing the green cover across the country for the purpose of generating green credits. 

Any person or entity desirous of undertaking tree plantation for the purposes of generating Green Credit may apply to the Administrator. “On receipt of the application under paragraph 3, the Administrator shall identify any land referred to in paragraph 1 and assign the same to the applicant and require him to submit a proposal for undertaking tree plantation for generation of Green Credit in lieu thereof under the said Rules,” the norms said. 

The norms said that the Green Credit would be calculated at the rate of one Green Credit per tree grown through the tree plantation on such land parcel, subject to a minimum density of 1,100 trees per hectare, based on the local silvi-climatic and soil conditions, on the certification of completion of tree plantation provided by the Forest Department concerned.