CAMPA: What the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act Actually Requires

1.1 Why must a project pay when it clears forest?

Roads, mines and dams often need forest land. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 controls this. PIB (July 2025) calls it the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980.

The company or department that wants the land must pay first. The CAF Act calls such a payer a user agency. The money funds new forest elsewhere. That new forest is called compensatory afforestation.

Users pay more than one kind of levy. The Act names compensatory afforestation, additional compensatory afforestation, penal compensatory afforestation and net present value.

• Net present value (NPV). It puts a price on what the lost forest gave. That includes wood, water, flood control and carbon storage.
• Penal compensatory afforestation. It is extra planting charged when non-forest work began without approval.

1.2 Which bodies make up CAMPA?

• Two levels, by law. CAMPA exists at both National and State levels, set out in Sections 8 and 10 of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act.
• Its real purpose. CAMPA manages funds paid by project developers to compensate for forest land diverted for non-forest use, such as mining or infrastructure.
• No mandatory-participation clause. The Act doesn’t legally mandate people’s participation. The word “participation” doesn’t even appear in it.
• Practice vs law. Community involvement happens in many afforestation programmes, but that’s a practical choice, not a legal requirement of this Act.

Section 3 creates the National Fund. Section 4 creates a State Fund in each State. Both sit in the public account. Section 8 creates the National Authority. Section 10 creates a State Authority in each State.

Section 9 adds an executive committee and a monitoring group to help the National Authority.

1.3 Who sits on these bodies?

The Union Environment Minister chairs the governing body of the National Authority. In each State, the Chief Minister chairs the State governing body. The Chief Secretary chairs the State steering committee.

The head of the State forest force chairs the State executive committee. That committee also has eminent non-governmental members.

1.4 Does the law ask for people's participation at all?

The Act does not. The word “participation” is missing from the Act and from the 2018 Rules.

The Rules do ask for talking to villagers. Work on forest land under a working plan must be taken up in consultation with the Gram Sabha or Village Forest Management Committee. It must also fit the Forest Rights Act, 2006, where that Act applies.

Consultation is not the same as consent. The Rules use the word consultation and never the word consent. This gap explains the conflicts in card 5.

2.1 Where does the money come from?

User agencies pay it before they get forest land. The Act lists the money that goes into a State Fund. This includes compensatory afforestation, net present value and catchment area treatment plan money.

Money for forest land taken inside protected areas goes in too. That money forms a corpus. Only the income from it is spent, and only on protecting those areas.

2.2 How is the money split between the Centre and the States?

• The 90/10 split. Ninety percent of CAMPA funds go to States and Union Territories for afforestation. The Centre retains ten percent. The Act lets it spend that on running the National Authority, on monitoring and evaluation, and on approved schemes.

The split works in two steps. First, the old Ad-hoc money was shared. Ninety per cent went to the State Funds. Ten per cent stayed with the Centre.

Second, each State sends ten per cent of its fresh receipts to the National Fund every year. The National Authority uses that share for its own running costs. It also pays for monitoring and for national schemes.

2.3 What can the money be spent on?

• More than just planting. CAMPA funds also cover soil and water conservation, forest protection, and wildlife management, not tree planting alone.

The 2018 Rules make this precise for NPV money. At least eighty per cent must go to forest and wildlife work. The list includes assisted natural regeneration, fire control, soil and moisture works and habitat improvement.

No more than twenty per cent may go to support work. That covers nurseries, forest roads, watch towers, monitoring and equipment for forest protection.

2.4 What can the money not be spent on?

The Rules bar NPV money from many uses. It cannot pay for foreign visits or legal cases unrelated to the Authority. It cannot buy staff cars or heavy vehicles. The Environment Minister also said the money cannot pay salaries.

It cannot buy furniture, office equipment or air conditioners. It cannot fund zoos or wildlife safaris. It cannot buy land for afforestation.

Keep this list in mind. It shows why the audit in card 6 raised eyebrows.

2.5 When did the law start working?

• A 2016 law, 2018 rules. The Act was passed in 2016, but its detailed operating rules weren’t notified until 2018.

The Rules were notified on 10 August 2018. The Act and Rules came into force on 30 September 2018.

Government also says the money now follows a plan. Each State prepares an annual plan of operations. The National Authority approves it within three months. The State then releases money in instalments.

A court created it, long before Parliament did

3.1 Why did a court create CAMPA?

CAMPA didn’t start as an Act of Parliament. It started as a Supreme Court order.

States had collected compensatory money but spent little of it. Government says this experience pushed the Court to act.

• In the T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India case, the Supreme Court ordered, in October 2002, that a Compensatory Afforestation Fund be created to hold all money collected from project developers.

3.2 What was Ad-hoc CAMPA?

• This created “Ad-hoc CAMPA,” a body with no statutory backing, run purely on the Court’s own directions.
• Ad-hoc CAMPA managed these funds from 2006. The 2016 Act gave the arrangement a legal foundation, and the old money moved to the new Authority only in January 2019.

The Court ordered the ad hoc authority on 5 May 2006. It also asked for the money to be pooled centrally. By the time the Act was drafted, over Rs 38,000 crore sat with it.

In 2009 the Court let Rs 1,000 crore a year go to the States. In 2014 it let ten per cent of each State’s deposit be released from the interest.

3.3 Why was a law needed?

The Act itself gives the reason. It says no permanent institution existed to use the money. That, it says, caused huge unspent funds.

Parliament passed the Bill in 2016. The Lok Sabha passed it on 3 May. The Rajya Sabha passed it on 28 July. The President gave assent on 3 August 2016.

3.4 What happened to the old money?

The Rules came in 2018. On 28 January 2019, with the Court’s approval, Rs 54,685 crore from Ad-hoc CAMPA came under the control of the Government of India.

On 29 August 2019 the Centre handed Rs 47,436 crore to the States. The Environment Minister said State forest budgets must stay unaffected. The CAMPA money was meant to be additional.

The Court’s first order on the fund came in 2002. The Act followed 14 years later.

85 percent of the target, on paper

4.1 How much planting was achieved?

A Supreme Court-mandated Central Empowered Committee report tracked CAMPA’s real performance between 2019-20 and 2023-24.

• India secured 1,78,261 hectares of compensatory afforestation, against a target of 2,09,297 hectares, about 85 percent achieved.
• Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chandigarh, and Mizoram fully met their targets. Meghalaya managed only 22.3 percent of its own.
• National CAMPA approved ₹38,516 crore for state plans in this period, but only ₹26,001 crore, about 67.5 percent, was actually utilised.

4.2 How do the money figures fit together?

The States released Rs 29,311 crore to their forest departments. Of that, Rs 26,001 crore was used. The 67.5 per cent compares the used money with the approved outlay of Rs 38,516 crore.

Look at the chain. Approved, then released, then used. Each step loses some money. That is why the bars shrink from left to right.

4.3 Which States did well and which did badly?

On area, Madhya Pradesh planted 21,746.82 hectares against a target of 21,107.68. Arunachal Pradesh reached 96.6 per cent. Uttar Pradesh reached 96.4 per cent.

At the other end, Meghalaya got 22.3 per cent. Tamil Nadu got 32.3 per cent. West Bengal got 39.2 per cent. Andhra Pradesh got 40.1 per cent.

On spending, Manipur and Andhra Pradesh used all the money released to them. Delhi used only 26.9 per cent, the lowest of all.

4.4 Why does spending lag behind planting?

The Committee named three reasons. States send their annual plans late. Funds are released late. Many States lack a dedicated CAMPA office.

It also said survival of plantations is monitored weakly. It still called progress under the law significant, given early difficulties and the Covid pandemic.

5.1 What is the conflict with the Forest Rights Act?

The Must Know card above notes that CAMPA doesn’t legally require community participation. The ad hoc years before the Act show what can go wrong.

• A 2017 civil society study looked at plantations raised under ad hoc CAMPA, before the Act came into force. It found plantations in at least 10 states that broke the Forest (Conservation) Act guidelines and the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
• In Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Odisha, plantations went ahead on community forest land vested in Gram Sabhas, without the Gram Sabha’s permission.

5.2 Who found these problems?

A civil society group named Community Forest Rights-Learning and Advocacy released an interim report in November 2017. It studied 2,479 plantations in 10 States from the government’s e-Green Watch site.

It found that over 70 per cent stood on forest land. The report says the Forest (Conservation) Act guidelines require compensatory planting on non-forest land. In 52 plantations in three States, it found no Gram Sabha permission. Some fenced plantations blocked villagers from the forest.

This is a civil society finding, reported by Down To Earth. It is not a court finding. It describes the ad hoc years, before the Act of 2016 took effect in September 2018.

5.3 What do the Rules say about local people?

The Rules ask for priority to villages hit by forest diversion. They ask for work that gives local jobs and builds community assets. They ask that indigenous species be planted in consultation with forest-dependent communities.

That is a duty on paper, and card 5.4 shows how it played out.

5.4 Is the gap in the law or in the practice?

Both play a part. The Act does not require participation. The Rules ask only for consultation. The 2017 study found villagers were not consulted in many ad hoc plantations.

Beyond the law, into the ledger

6.1 What are the main complaints?

• Fund underutilization. Reports have repeatedly flagged large amounts of CAMPA money sitting unspent for years in several states.
• A concrete misuse case. A CAG audit of Uttarakhand’s CAMPA fund found ₹13.86 crore spent on inadmissible items, including phones, laptops, fridges and coolers. The Supreme Court sought the state’s response.
• Weak survival checks. The Central Empowered Committee said monitoring of plantation survival remains weak. It warned that gaps in survival and unspent funds undermine the purpose of CAMPA.
• Poor plantation quality. A High Level Committee on Environment Laws blamed poor plantation quality, in part, for falling forest-cover quality from 1951 to 2014.

6.2 What did the Uttarakhand audit actually find?

The CAG report covers 2019 to 2022. It was laid in the Uttarakhand Assembly during its budget session. It said Rs 13.86 crore went to inadmissible items at the divisional level.

The items included a state scheme, a tiger safari, building repairs, court cases, and phones, laptops, fridges and coolers. In 37 cases, planting came more than eight years after final clearance. That raised costs by Rs 11.54 crore.

6.3 How did the Supreme Court end the matter?

A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and A.G. Masih took note of the report. The Chief Secretary filed an affidavit. The State said most spending linked to forests, directly or indirectly.

The State admitted a few items were wrongly bought from the fund. One was an iPhone worth Rs 53,000. It began proceedings against those responsible.

On 19 March 2025 the Court closed the matter. It called any deviations trivial. It told the State to avoid them in future. The case is a lesson in both audit and proportion.

6.4 What does government say about using the money wisely?

A 2023 PIB reply says CAMPA money is special and additional. It is not meant to replace normal State funds. NPV balances in most States are limited and could run out if used without planning.

So the National Authority asked States for long-term plans. States are limiting yearly use of NPV funds to 15 to 20 per cent.

7.1 What pattern do examiners keep using?

This topic gets tested by stating something CAMPA does do, alongside something it sounds like it should do, but legally doesn’t.

• UPSC CSP 2019, Q68 Does CAMPA exist at both levels, and is participation mandatory under the CAF Act, 2016?

The safe answer is simple. CAMPA exists at both levels. Participation is not mandatory under the Act.

7.2 What else could be asked?

• Which law created the funds, and in which year was it passed?
• How is money split between the Centre and the States?
• Which body ran the fund before the Act, and under whose orders?
• What does an audit say about spending, area and survival?

7.3 Quick Q&A