Aravali Green Project will improve the ecosystem, work will be done on eight lakh hectares of area in the first phase
Aravali Green Project: The Center has planned to improve the degraded ecosystem in more than eight lakh hectares of area in the first phase of its ambitious Aravali Green Wall Project. Under this project, a green buffer area is to be developed around the Aravali mountain range in northwest India. This initiative will be important in achieving India's climate goal.
The government has planned to restore the decaying ecosystem in more than eight lakh hectares of land under the first phase of the Aravali Green Wall Project. The project will help to create a green belt along the Aravali range of the northwestern part of the country. The project will be essential to fulfill the climate goal of the country.
The government will incur an estimated Rs 16,053 crore during the first phase under the Aravali restoration action plan. The project aims to check soil erosion and the eastward shift of the Thar Desert.
Stretching 700 km from Gujarat to Delhi, the Aravalli range provides protection to the region from desertification, preventing the Thar Desert from encroaching further and protecting urban regions like Delhi, Jaipur, and Gurugram.
India's oldest mountain system, the Aravallis, is the origin of important rivers like the Chambal, Sabarmati, and the Luni. The grasslands, forests, and wetlands are the habitat for vulnerable plant and animal species.
However, deforestation, mining, and encroachment are further fueling desertification, groundwater exhaustion, lake drying up, and degrading the carrying capacity of the region to sustain wildlife.
To tackle these problems, the government launched the 'Aravalli Green Wall' initiative in March 2023. The project aims to establish a green belt buffer zone in the form of a five-kilometre-wide strip over an area of 64.5 lakh hectares in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi.
About 42 percent (27 lakh hectares) of the land falling under this buffer zone is eroded. According to this, 81 percent of the total eroded land is in Rajasthan, 15.8 percent in Gujarat, 1.7 percent in Haryana, and 1.6 percent in Delhi. Land erosion is a process in which the productive capacity of the land decreases.
In the first phase of the project, 8,16,732 hectares of recorded forest area will be restored. This includes 3,010 hectares in Delhi, 5,677 hectares in Gujarat, 3,812 hectares in Haryana, and 99,952 hectares in Rajasthan. Under this, additional absorption capacity equivalent to 2.5 to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide will be developed and by 2030, 2.6 crore hectares of barren land will be made fertile again.
