Even a cursory glance at the annual report of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for the year ending March 21, 2022, released recently is sufficient to indicate the dismal performance of the country in this regard.

The Forest and Tree Cover Assessment is done by FSI and the latest report ISFR 2021 was released on January 13, 2022, which says that there was an increase of 1540 sq km in the forest cover of the country as compared to the ISFR 2019. The progress is not satisfactory because it is far less than the requirement that we need to counter the adverse impact of the climate change. Moreover, the data does not give the true picture on the ground, and the government claim of a ‘remarkable feat’ of progress, in reality, buries serious concerns in the forest.

Even at the time of release of ISFR 2019, the Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had louded the achievement by telling the country that forest and tree cover in India increased by more than 130 million hectares in the last four years. He patted his back for the development, for which people should have been praised, but not his ministry officials.

In reality, the very process of assessment veils the truth because the data for knowing the forest cover is collected between the months of October and February, a period that comes after the monsoon that spreads the greenery in the form of shrubs and thickets almost everywhere. March onwards these shrubs and thickets begin to dry and the greenery shrinks until June. In the meantime, there occurs the menace of forest fires that not only burns the dried up shrubs and thickets, but also cause a serious damage to the ecology.

The government stand on its dismal performance and its claims cannot thus veil the suffering of Indians due to imbalance in the environment, ecology, and the climate change, the adverse effects of which are manifested in uneven rainfall causing draught, water crisis, devastating floods, and scorching heat waves in several parts of the country.

Forest fires are increasing in the country causing great devastation to the forest, environment and ecology. The forest fire alerts dissemination system MODIS shows that the forest fires were more than doubled during November 2020-21 as against 22,447 in the previous year. SNPP-VIIRS also reported 3,45,989 incidences as against 1,24,473 during the period under consideration. Nearly 10.66% area of Forest Cover in India is under extremely to very highly fire prone zone, as per the long-term trend analysis performed by FSI, which needs to be addressed with priority.

Since India had joined the High Ambition Coalition on 7th October, 2021, which shall promote an international agreement to protect at least 30% of world’s land and 10% of the ocean by 2030, it is obliged to remain true to its own commitment. Perhaps due to this, and several other domestic and international reasons Modi government has resented when India was ranked worst performing country of the world on EPI.

India has a plan of Compensatory Afforestation (CA) which is required to be implemented by development projects. The overall achievement in respect of CA and Penal CA plantation at National level is 9,38,019.17 ha against a target of 10,63,031.32 ha, which comes to 88.24 percent. The backlog of 1,25,012.15 ha will be completed by 31.03.2023, the government has said. Further, an overall survival percentage of only 72.97 per cent against 20.81 crores trees planted under Compensatory Afforestation in the last five years has been reported.

As for the abatement of pollution, India’s performance is very bad and the country is the home to most polluted cities of the world. Air and water qualities in the country are also ranked one of the worst, which is also reflected in the EPI 2022 which ranked the country worst among 180 countries assessed. Government of India has been implementing since January 10th, 2019, a National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) which has obviously failed. NCAP targets to achieve 20 to 30 per cent reduction in Particulate matter by 2024 (base 2019) across the country. However, Delhi turned World’s most polluted national capital and no city left without disastrous level of pollution, with 11 of them dominated 15 in the Central and South Asia, and 63 dominated 100 most polluted cities of the world according to World Air Quality Report 2021. The economic impact of this is a loss of over $150 billion yearly while three deaths every minute linked to it.

As for water pollution, at the national level, the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) of Niti Aayog has confirmed that 70 percent of India's water supply is contaminated. Globally, India is ranked 120th among 122 countries in Water Aid's water quality index.

Needless to say, the numerous programmes the Government of India is implementing for conservation of the environment as measures to counter the adverse impacts of the climate change suffer from numerous faults of the government policies and official inactions or mismanagement endangering the very survival of numerous species of lives through environmental and ecological destruction.