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MoEF seeks enhanced budget for National Adaptation Fund

It also seeks sops for pollution abatement

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has demanded enhanced budgetary allocation for
the National Adaptation Fund.
In 2014, the government allocated Rs. 100 crore to set up the Fund. Official sources said the Ministry had sought
concessions for pollution abatement, climate-related instrumentation and reduction in the cost of pollution-measuring
equipment. Cost should not come in the way of tackling pollution, the sources said.
The Ministry is keen that some allocation be made in all Ministries so that climate change is integrated into planning.
The government had doubled the coal cess to finance clean energy research but there is no new proposal from the
ministry to increase the cess further.
The National Adaptation Fund has Rs. 100 crore but this is way short of what is needed for adaptation programmes.
While the government has embarked on ambitious adaptation plans, funds are an issue as was the case of the
National Agriculture Mission which had to incorporate itself into existing government programmes with a vastly scaled
down budget.
There was a shortage of funds for the ambitious National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), which led to
some goals of the mission being embedded into five existing programmes of the Agriculture and Cooperation
departments.
The NMSA is one of the eight missions under the National Action Plan for Climate Change launched in 2008 which
was aimed at transforming Indian agriculture into a climate-resilient production system through suitable adaptation
and mitigation measures in the domain of crops and animal husbandry.
According to the Mission document in 2010, the implementation of the NMSA from 2011-2012 to the end of the 12th
five year plan would require an additional budgetary support of Rs. 1,08,000 crore.
However, official sources said there was a resource constraint and the Mission was dovetailed into five major existing
programmes.
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16-02-2015 22:56