Hyderabad: In a great relief to both Telugu states, both of which are facing a financial crunch, the Centre released pending funds under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (Campa).
While Telangana got a cheque for Rs 3,110 crore, the highest-ever under the Campa, Andhra Pradesh received an amount of Rs 1,734 crore. Telangana minister A. Indrakaran Reddy and AP minister Balineni Srinivasa Reddy receiv-ed the cheques at a meeting chaired by Mr Prakash Javadekar, Union minister for environment, forests and climate change in New Delhi.
Mr. Javadekar handed over a total of Rs 47,436 crore under Campa to various states to improve afforestation and achieve green objectives, at a meeting of forest ministers of all states here.
Mr Javadekar urged all states that received Campa funds to utilise it as per the provisions of the rules and not to reduce the state government’s regular budgetary allocations.
After the meeting, Mr Indrakaran Reddy said it was the first time that the state had received such huge funds under Campa. He said that after the formation of Telangana, the state had concentrated heavily on afforestation. He said that the Centre had released huge funds because Telangana was using allocations under Campa effectively. He said under the Haritha Haram programme, the state had fixed a target of planting 230 crore saplings in four years.
Mr Reddy said that in four phases, a total of 113.58 crore saplings had been planted. The target for the fifth phase was to plant 83 crore saplings this year.
