Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Green India Mission was designed to do something no single department could do alone. That is stated plainly in its own design: the Mission was to work by convergence, drawing money and labour from the compensatory afforestation fund, from the rural employment guarantee, from State afforestation programmes, and adding its own. The Comptroller and Auditor General has now examined ten years of that design in operation, and the report was tabled in Parliament on 12 August 2026.
Performance Audit Report No. 4 of 2026 covers the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and examines the planning, implementation and monitoring of Mission interventions in the 16 States and Union Territories for which the Ministry approved physical and financial targets between 2015-16 and 2024-25. Its objectives were the Mission’s own: more forest and tree cover, better quality on forest and non-forest land, improved ecosystem services including biodiversity, hydrological services and carbon sequestration, and higher forest-based livelihood income for households living in and around forests.
What the audit found on money
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved an outlay of ₹2,000 crore from the Twelfth Plan for the Mission’s first four years, together with ₹400 crore from Thirteenth Finance Commission grants towards the States’ share. Audit records that ₹1,149.14 crore — 47.88 per cent — was received through budgetary support over the ten years of implementation. Blitz has checked that percentage against the two figures and it is correct as printed.
The convergence that was to supply the rest did not materialise as planned. Audit records that the absence of convergence was evident at all institutional levels, that Mission activities lacked effective alignment with the compensatory afforestation fund management authority, the rural employment guarantee scheme and other central and State afforestation initiatives, and that the Nagar Van Yojana and the School Nursery Yojana operated in silos. It puts the funding support not secured in consequence at ₹10,600 crore. On the annual plans of operation, the report records that six of 68 sampled plans reached the Ministry before the start of the financial year, and that none was approved on time.
From the tabled report, as recorded by the auditor.
Green India Mission, 2015-16 to 2024-25
| Parameter / Metric | Details |
|---|---|
| Outlay approved, first four years | ₹2,000 cr |
| Thirteenth Finance Commission grants, States’ share | ₹400 cr |
| Received through budgetary support, ten years | ₹1,149.14 cr |
| Proportion of the approved outlay | 47.88% |
| Convergence funding not secured | ₹10,600 cr |
| Target, quality improvement of forest cover | 1.4 m ha |
| Observed | 0.11384 m ha |
| Target, increase in forest cover | 1.4 m ha |
| Observed | 0.03409 m ha |
Every figure in this table is the auditor’s, from Performance Audit Report No. 4 of 2026, Union Government, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, tabled in Parliament on 12 August 2026. Blitz has recomputed the two shortfall percentages the report states — 91.87 per cent and 97.57 per cent — from the target and observed figures and finds them as printed.
What the audit found on ground
Against a target of 1.4 million hectares, improvement in the quality of forest cover was observed on 0.11384 million hectares, a shortfall the report puts at 91.87 per cent. Against the same target for an increase in forest cover, an increase was observed on 0.03409 million hectares, a shortfall of 97.57 per cent. On monitoring, audit records that 14 States did not provide the required public web links, that some achievement data was inflated or overstated where KML files were not validated, and that its own geographic information system analysis showed no noticeable change attributable to the Mission at 70 per cent of the sampled sites.
The two States that did the measurement
One finding in this report deserves to be lifted out of it, because a demonstration that something is achievable is the most useful thing any audit can produce. Audit records that no State except Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh carried out any assessment of carbon sequestration between 2015 and 2025. Those two did. Carbon sequestration is the whole point of an afforestation mission in a climate context, and it is the part hardest to measure; two States found a way to measure it. The report also records that flux towers installed in those States for that quantification were left idle for want of maintenance planning by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, at an expenditure of ₹3.50 crore — which is a different problem, of upkeep rather than of intent, and a cheaper one to fix.
A demonstration that the thing is achievable is the most useful sentence in any audit report.
Where the process now stands
This must be stated precisely. The report was tabled on 12 August 2026. At the time of writing, the Ministry’s Action Taken Notes on these paragraphs are not on the public record, and no committee of Parliament has yet examined the report or made a recommendation on it. What is printed above is therefore the auditor’s finding at the stage of tabling, and nothing more. Blitz will carry the Ministry’s reply, and the Public Accounts Committee’s view of that reply, when each is available. No individual is named in this account, and none is named in the report as this desk read it.
What India gains from an audit like this. A mission that is measured is a mission that can be corrected. India carries a nationally determined commitment on forest and tree carbon, and it is reported internationally; the credibility of that report rests on exactly the measurement chain this audit examined — validated coordinates, working flux towers, States that assess sequestration rather than estimate it. An auditor who says plainly that 70 per cent of sampled sites showed no attributable change is doing something for India’s standing that no press release can: he is making the eventual claim believable.
Offered only as corrective advice, to help the work move faster: the report’s own findings point at their own remedy. The two States that measured carbon sequestration have a method; circulating it as the Mission’s standard protocol would cost nothing and would answer the largest gap the audit found. The flux towers already built need an operations and maintenance line rather than a fresh sanction. And an annual plan of operation that reaches the Ministry before the financial year begins is the one condition on which every other timeline in the Mission depends — six out of 68 is a problem of calendar, and problems of calendar are the easiest kind to solve.
A tabled audit report has no event photograph of its own date, and Circular BIMG/CIR/2026/02 bars any substitute image in its place.
