WAJAHAT SHABIR
SRINAGAR: A planned 1,750-hectare seabuckthorn plantation in Ladakh has failed to take off, with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) finding that neither was the Perspective Plan for the Union Territory submitted nor did the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change make efforts to obtain it.
The finding has emerged in the CAG’s Performance Audit of the Green India Mission (GIM), which examined the implementation of the afforestation programme across 16 States and Union Territories.
The audit noted that the Perspective Plan of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State, approved by the National Executive Council (NEC) in July 2019, had identified 1,750 hectares in the Ladakh region for planting seabuckthorn under Sub Mission 2(c) of the Green India Mission.
However, following the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir in October 2019, the NEC approved a revised Perspective Plan for the UT of Jammu and Kashmir in June 2020.
The CAG observed that neither did the SFDA submit the Perspective Plan for the newly created UT of Ladakh, nor did the Ministry make any efforts to obtain it. Consequently, the proposed seabuckthorn plantation in the identified 1,750 hectares could not be carried out till date.
The audit finding points to a gap in institutional coordination following the reorganisation of the erstwhile State.
The 1,750-hectare area had already been identified for the intervention under the approved Perspective Plan. But after the creation of the separate UT of Ladakh, the process did not translate into a corresponding plan for taking forward the proposed plantation.
Instead, according to the CAG, the required Perspective Plan was not submitted and the Ministry did not pursue the matter, effectively leaving the proposed intervention unimplemented.
The finding assumes significance because seabuckthorn was specifically identified under GIM as a critical ecosystem intervention. The Mission envisaged seabuckthorn plantations in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Sikkim.
Other States also failed to take up seabuckthorn work The CAG found that the problem was not confined to Ladakh.
In Himachal Pradesh, 1,622 hectares had been identified in the Perspective Plan, but no interventions were undertaken. In Uttarakhand, a 1,000-hectare plantation was envisaged, but no interventions were identified for funding in any Annual Plan of Operations between 2018 and 2025.
In Sikkim, against a target of 270 hectares, the State reported achievement of 104 hectares by March 2025. However, GIS analysis of one 10-hectare plantation site at Denga found no change in vegetation, the audit said.
