Enacted by Parliament of India Date passed 28 July 2016 | Date passed 3 May 2016 | |
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CAMPA bill or Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority bill is an Indian legislation that seeks to provide an appropriate institutional mechanism, both at the Centre and in each State and Union Territory, to ensure expeditious utilization in efficient and transparent manner of amounts realised in lieu of forest land diverted for non-forest purpose which would mitigate impact of diversion of such forest land.
Contents
History
In 2002, the Supreme Court of India observed that collected funds for afforestation were underutilized by the states and it ordered for centrally pooling of funds under Compensatory Afforestation Fund. The court had set up the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (National CAMPA) to manage the Fund. In 2009, states also had set up State CAMPAs that receive 10% of funds form National CAMPA to use for afforestation and forest conservation. However, in 2013, a CAG report identified that the funds continued to be underutilized. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2015 was introduced by the government in Lok Sabha on May 8, 2015 to regulate collected funds. The bill was sent for examination under a standing committee. It was passed by Rajya Sabha on 28 July 2016.
Purpose
The legislation established the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) and the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF). The proposed legislation will also ensure expeditious utilization of accumulated unspent amounts available with the ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), which presently is of the order of Rs. 39,000 crore, and fresh accrual of compensatory levies and interest on accumulated unspent balance, which will be of the order of approximately Rs. 6,000 crore per annum, in an efficient and transparent manner.