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| Issue 06 | October 2005 | ||||
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Tiger conservation in India figures prominently in current public debate and Project Tiger National Parks form a significant part of conservation efforts. Amidst all the attention, an aspect crucial to success finds itself often overlooked: funding. Project Tiger National Parks suffer from delayed receipt of funds – a fact acknowledged even by the Project Tiger Status Report 2001. Project Tiger, which is a centrally sponsored scheme under the Five Year Plans, has been allotted Rs 150 crores in the 10th Plan (2002-2007). This money is distributed amongst the 27 tiger reserves under Project Tiger over a period of five years. The allocation for the last fiscal was Rs. 30 crores. For the current and the next fiscal, the allocations are Rs. 32 crores and Rs. 34 crores respectively. In addition to the usual case of sanctioned amounts short of demanded amounts, the point to note is that this allotted money, too, is prevented by red tape from reaching these National Parks in time. This is due to the long bureaucratic procedure that is involved in the sanctioning of money for these National Parks. The delayed receipt of funds is detrimental to proper functioning of the National Parks. The above problem is also acknowledged in Page 78 of the Project Tiger Status Report 2001. "As a result (of the delayed receipt of funds), all the maintenance works, protection and habitat management operations, as well as other frontline works, have received a severe set back." Different activities have relevance in different seasons. For example, executing anti-fire measures in the post-monsoon season would make no sense. Similarly, repair of roads in the summers would be futile, as the rains would damage the roads again. Thus, timely receipt of funds for various activities is very important. It all starts with the Field Directors of individual parks sending their demand for money in the form of an Annual Plan of Operation (APO) to their respective State Forest Departments. The APO contains details of the amount of funds demanded by the National Park for activities under various specified heads. The State Forest Department may approve the APO for furthering to Project Tiger Directorate or return it for revision. Once the APO has reached the Project Tiger Directorate, New Delhi, the Director of Project Tiger, reviews the APO. According to Mr. P.K. Sen, former Director of Project Tiger (PT), the APO for the next financial year should ideally reach the Project Tiger Directorate in the last quarter of the current financial year. The Director, PT, may add/remove items in the APO, reduce/increase the allocation for specific items or even send the APO back to the State for reconsideration. Once passed by the Director, the APO moves on to the Joint Director, PT. The Joint Director of Project Tiger then reviews the APO. Thereafter, the APO is sent to the Secretary/Joint-Secretary, MoEF and to the Integrated Finance Department of MoEF. The Secretary/Joint-Secretary is the competent authority to sanction the plans while the Integrated Finance Department is the competent authority to release the funds. Once the Project Tiger Directorate receives their approvals, the Joint Director of Project Tiger writes to the Principal Accounts Office, MoEF and to the Accountant General who operates from the Nagpur Branch of the Reserve Bank of India. The Principal Accounts Office communicates the sanction to the Accountant General, RBI Nagpur. On receipt of the confirmation from the Principal Accounts Office, the money from RBI Nagpur is transferred to the accounts of the concerned State Government. The speed of transfer of money to the parks within States varies: in Bihar, for example, the bureaucracy involved is rather extensive according to 'The Tragedy of the Indian tiger: starting from scratch' by Valmik Thapar. For the money to reach the park, it has to be cleared by the Chief Minister or the Cabinet of Ministers and then by an administrative department before it was forwarded to the Forest Department. As a result of this elaborate the bureaucratic process, Palamau and Valmik National Parks did not receive money until the end of the financial year 1996-1997. Evidently, the procedure for sanctioning money to Tiger reserves is very long and complicated. Assuming that APO are never sent back for revision, from start to finish they pass through no less than seven posts/department. If the APO is sent back for revision at any stage, the process only gets longer. Given that State Governments approve APOs, their involvement in the flow of sanctioned funds to the park seems unnecessary. The process may be expedited by allowing the National Parks to have accounts with Commercial Banks. RBI Nagpur can transfer the sanctioned amounts directly to the Commercial Banks thus eliminating the delay at the level of the State Government. Also, deputation of staff, for a specified period every year, from the concerned State Departments to the National Park and from the concerned Central Government to the Project Tiger Directorate would help in faster processing of the APO. Receipt of funds in time
for various seasonal activities will ensure far more effective
management of the National Parks. It requires only proactive
administrative reforms on the part of the Government to improve at least
one of the many problems that our National Parks face.
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Centre
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