Centre announces plan to develop 200 urban forests in 5 years

NEWDELHI: The Centre has announced the implementation of a scheme to develop

200 urban forests across the country in the next five years, with Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar saying there was a need to increase forest cover in such areas.

Javadekar on Friday announced the implementation of the “Nagar Van” scheme to develop the urban forests.

The environment ministry announced the scheme in 2016 but officials said it couldn’t be implemented on a large scale so far.

The urban forests will be on any forest land inside a city or any other vacant land offered by local urban bodies.

A document on the scheme released by Javadekar said that the urban forests will be developed by involving local communities; corporates; local bodies; NGOs, among others.

Once established, the urban forests will be maintained by the state government and an entry fee can be charged from visitors for maintenance, the document said.

“These will be on public private partnership (PPP) mode where fencing will be done by the government but planting, public convenience infrastructure, walkways can be done by private companies as part of their corporate social responsibility,” said a senior official of the environment ministry (forestry division).