Conservation Initiatives In The Budget

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Context: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech introduced schemes and policies aimed at ecological conservation.

Details:

MISHTI (Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes)

MISHTI is a new programme that will facilitate mangrove plantation along India’s coastline and on salt pan lands.
The programme will operate through “convergence between MGNREGS, Campa Fund and other sources”.
This new programme will aim at intensive afforestation of coastal mangrove forests.
India has such forests on both its Eastern and Western coasts with the Sundarbans in Bengal being one of the largest mangrove forests on the planet.

PM PRANAM (Prime Minister Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth):

This programme will seek to incentivise states and union territories promoting alternative fertilisers and the balanced use of chemical fertilisers.
The programme aims to ultimately bring down the government’s subsidy burden, which is estimated to reach Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2022-23: 39 per cent higher than last year’s figure of Rs 1.62 lakh crore.

Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-Input Resource Centres

To further facilitate the adoption of “natural farming,” 10,000 Bio-Input Resource Centres will be set-up, creating a national-level distributed micro-fertiliser and pesticide manufacturing network.
This will impact over 1 crore farmers over the next three years, the finance minister said in her speech.

Amrit Dharohar

This is a scheme that will be implemented over the next three years to encourage optimal use of wetlands, and enhance bio-diversity, carbon stock, eco-tourism opportunities and income generation for local communities.
Amrit Dharohar will emphasise on the importance of wetlands and their preservation, with an outlook that is inclusive of local communities as caretakers of the ecosystem.