Not a very green budget, says environment expert

Environmental expert and Director of ORF Kolkata, Dr Nilanjan Ghosh raised concerns over the budget allocation for the Environment Ministry, opining that it might not be a very green Budget.

New Delhi: The Centre has shrunk down the budgetary allocation to Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change by Rs 230 crore in the Union Budget 2021-22. The move has raised concerns among environmentalists, who believe that it may slow down the progress in environmental protection work and green initiatives.

The total budget allocated for the ministry this year is Rs 2,869.93 crore, while it was Rs 3,100 crore last year.

Speaking on the development, environmental expert and Director of ORF Kolkata, Dr Nilanjan Ghosh, said, "While this budget has far-fetched development implications, there are 2-3 elements which needed further consideration related to environmental concerns. There has not been any mention of allocation to the cause of global warming and climate change."

"There are some issues. The first issue arises with the huge amount of capital expenditure towards physical infrastructure creation, and there remains a concern that the critical environmental conservation variables might not get plugged in these types of investments. So, this might not be a very green budget," he added.

However, the Centre has earmarked a sum of Rs 2,217 crore separately for tackling air pollution in 42 urban centres. In addition to this, the amount for National Coastal Mission has almost been doubled from Rs 103 crore in the last fiscal to Rs 200 crore in 2021-22.

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"However, what is commendable is that it recognises the need for marine resources, quite a bit of money has been set aside for exploration of essentially marine biodiversity. This is going to be a kick-start to the exploration of the blue economy," Ghosh said.

For the very first time, a Rs 20 crore budget provision has been made for the newly-formed Committee for Air Quality Management.

However, the Centre has reduced the amount allocated to the climate change action plan by Rs 10 crore and to Project Tiger by Rs 50 crore.

"Yet, given the developmental challenges in the post lockdown world, I presume that the government has indeed raised some of the most critical aspects of the SDGs. However, I still feel that climate action should have been plugged in somewhere," the environmentalist asserted.

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