India set out to expand its forested areas a decade ago. Last week, however, we learned that the forest cover programme had barely taken root when the government’s auditors released their findings of the flagship Green India Mission. The shortfall of ۹۷.۵۷% from India’s initial pledge in ۲۰۱۴ was stark enough to alarm the government’s own auditor, who described the progress as “negligible”.
Yet if you ask the government about forest cover, you’ll get a far greener picture.
I’m writing this on the day the UK Met Office issued a calamitous warning – ۲۰۲۷ could be the hottest year yet, on account of the strongest El Niño in more than a century. For India, a disrupted monsoon season puts agriculture and millions who depend on it at risk.
Which makes the question of what’s happening to India’s green cover feel far more urgent than an academic disagreement over numbers. I went down the rabbit hole of reports, datasets and government’s parliamentary disclosures. Here’s what I found.
۱. Forest cover v forest cover
The government’s last comprehensive report from ۲۰۲۳ (released a year later) touted that forest cover in India has grown since ۲۰۲۱. But other, independent, assessments have found that forest cover is lower than what the government has claimed in recent years, or that it has reduced.
The discrepancy lies in some creative accounting. Last year, dozens of former civil servants wrote to the government criticising the forest report. They described its methodology as unreliable and nonscientific, pointing to the inclusion of smaller orchards, as well as coconut and rubber plantations, in the calculation of forest cover.
“A lot of the discrepancies are coming from how and what we are counting as forests. We have broadened the definition to include a lot more,” Pooja Choksi, founder of environmental consultancy Ficus Research Consulting, told me.
The government has defended its methodology, saying its definition is internationally accepted and includes tree-covered land outside forests as well as orchards and bamboo and palm plantations.
۲. Whose land is it anyway?
Even as the government pledged to increase forestation, over the past five years India has approved the diversion of forest land for development projects covering an area roughly equivalent to the size of Hong Kong, according to data shared in parliament this month. The pace has accelerated, with the last financial year seeing the single largest chunk cleared yet.
Mining was the single-biggest sector, accounting for ۲۲% of all diverted forest land, followed by road works and irrigation projects.
۳. Ground zero
The pressure on forests is concentrated in some states. Nearly a quarter of all forest land diverted nationwide since ۲۰۲۱ is in Madhya Pradesh, which is home to the country’s largest forest area. Its share is more than double that of the next state, Odisha. Arunachal Pradesh on the north-eastern border with China ranks third for forest diversions, according to government figures shared in parliament.
One research team that mapped ۲۸ years of satellite data from three central Indian coalmine regions, including two in Madhya Pradesh, found the damage from such projects extended far beyond disappearing trees. Water bodies shrank, soil quality degraded and the overall natural ecosystems diminished by ۳۵%.
۴. The ‘great’ project
Perhaps nowhere is this trade-off more starkly visible than in the project proposed in the pristine Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are home to protected Indigenous tribes.
The central government has touted the Great Nicobar Project as a strategic necessity to strengthen India’s maritime and defence presence in the Indo-Pacific. The project would divert ۱۳,۰۷۵ hectares of forest land and cut down, conservatively, at least ۷۰۰,۰۰۰ trees to make way for a trans-shipment port, an international airport, a mega township and a power plant for their operation, at a combined cost north of $۶.۸۹ bn (Rs ۹۰,۰۰۰ crore). The project has already led to legal challenges and pushback from the opposition Congress party and environmentalists.
“Situated at the precise intersection of variable sea-level rise and sinking land, the Great Nicobar Project is not merely ecologically destructive or culturally erosive for the Indigenous populations – it is geologically impossible,” geoscientist CP Rajendran wrote in The Wire, arguing that the government is using natural security as a pretext to push a commercial hub in one of the world’s most tectonically active zones.
۵. Is compensatory afforestation the answer?
For many such development projects that divert forest land, the answer has been to pour substantial public funds into planting trees and creating forests elsewhere. But experts caution that this may not be as simple a solution as it may sound.
Choksi, whose research focuses on biodiversity outcomes of restoration and tree-planting policies, said the rush to meet Paris Agreement targets has made India obsessed with “green cover” while ignoring other aspects of environmental policy.
“We need to move away from this very one-dimensional view that everything is green cover. What is being planted and where it is planted has a huge influence. The third question being why is it being planted because different trees have different purposes,” Choksi said.
A natural forest patch with ۱۰۰ different species, she added, has very different ecological value to a plantation under the Green India Mission, which might have ۲۰ species. “It does have biodiversity value, but it certainly does not have the same value as the diverse forest patches that we have across the country,” she said.
All of this shows that the true health of India’s forests is not easy to assess, which is in itself concerning. Meanwhile, India’s biennial forest report was due in ۲۰۲۵. We’re still waiting.
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What else we’re reading about
Gaga over RaGa | Gaggan Anand, once dubbed the most famous Indian chef in the world by the New York Times, has finally opened a restaurant in India. RaGa, on Delhi’s upmarket Janpath Road, starts serving on ۲۶ August.
Surviving summer | What is it like to endure extreme heat in a city pushed beyond its capacity to cope? In a dispatch from Mumbai’s sweltering summer in Equator magazine, Aruna Chandrasekhar provides a dystopian glimpse of a climate-stressed future.
Cost of reporting | Uttar Pradesh journalist Abhishek Upadhyay, among the first to report on the theft of donations at Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir Temple, has alleged police harassment and retaliation over his reporting.
Guest shelf
A recommendation from someone with great taste
Diet Sabya (@dietsabya), the anonymous Indian fashion watchdog, spills the tea on his current obsession: “Gathering by Haider Saleem is a very under-the-radar, slow-fashion brand that not enough people know about. There’s a lingering notion that Indian menswear-forward brands have to look a certain way or that they somehow can’t occupy the same conversation, say as The Row or Lemaire. Gathering proves otherwise. The clothes have this organic ease to them: earthy tones, flattering cuts, natural fabrics, with much of the dyeing done traditionally in Jaipur. The sort of brand you want to gate keep until everyone discovers it and you can say: “Oh, I’ve known them for ages.’”
Count it
A number worth knowing
Rs ۸,۴۵۲ crore
The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM Cares), set up during the coronavirus pandemic, had a balance of £۶۴۷m (Rs ۸,۴۵۲ crore) at the end of the ۲۰۲۵ financial year, prompting questions about why such a large sum remained unused instead of being put towards relief work. Pradeep Bhandari, a spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata party, countered the charge in a debate on Times Now, saying the PM Cares fund provides for long-term rehabilitation instead of immediate relief during disasters.
Vibe check
For choreographer and director Usha Jey (@usha_jey), learning bharatanatyam at the age of ۲۰ was a way to connect to her culture. Jey, who is French and of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage, has since developed her own movement language. Hybrid bharatham, as she calls it, fuses the Indian classical dance form with hip-hop but is careful to retain the integrity of both. There is an interplay of abandon and elegance in her choreographic works. Actor Maitreyi Ramakrishnan features in her latest video, Hide N Seek. Directed by Jey and her longtime partner, Gavin Emishka, the film is a striking visual treat featuring two dance forms in fluid negotiation.
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