Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
Lack of uniformity in legal and financial provisions across various states of the
country also makes it difficult for many farmers to integrate trees into their
cropping systems.
National Agroforestry Policy (NAP), 2014: The major highlights of the Policy are:
establishment of an institutional set-up at the national level within the Ministry
of Agriculture to promote agroforestry; simplify regulations related to harvesting,
felling and transportation of trees grown on farmlands; ensuring security of land
tenure and creating a sound base of land records and data for developing a market
information system (MIS) for agroforestry; investing in research, extension
and capacity building and related services; access to quality planting material;
institutional credit and insurance cover to agroforestry practitioners; increased
participation of industries dealing with agroforestry produce, and strengthening
MIS for tree products. The policy identified 20 important multipurpose tree
species at the national level to be exempted from all restrictions related to
harvesting, transportation and marketing if grown under agroforestry systems.
One of the objectives of NAP, 2014 was to bring together various programmes,
schemes, missions on various elements of agroforestry functioning in various
departments of agriculture, forestry and rural sectors of the government under
one platform. This has been achieved in July 2017 through expanding the remit of
the National Bamboo Mission, renaming it the National Agroforestry and Bamboo
Mission, under the Department of Agriculture and Co-operation (DAC), Ministry
of Agriculture. The Central Agro-Forestry Research Institute (CAFRI), Jhansi) is
being upgraded as a nodal centre with agro-ecology-based regional centres in
various parts of the country. This step will promote value chains, climate-resilient
technology development and pave the way for region-based marketing linkages in
agroforestry. The Policy also suggests massive extension programmes in order to
broadcast the outcomes of intensive R&D activities in the field of agroforestry.
Annexures
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