Centre unveils draft rules to issue environment Green Credits

The Indian government has come out with a draft of the Green Credit Programme Implementation Rules to provide incentives in the form of Green Credit to those promoting and protecting environment.

According to the Environment Ministry, the programme encourages various entities to meet their existing obligations by taking action which converge with activities relevant for generating or buying Green Credits.

The main objectives are to create a market-based mechanism to provide the Green Credits to individuals, farmer producer bodies, cooperatives, forestry enterprises, sustainable agriculture enterprises, urban and rural local bodies, private sector, industries and organisations for environment positive action.

It also envisages a mass movement to realise the vision of “Mission LiFE” through pro-planet people and entities.

“A phased and iterative approach for implementation of the programme will be adopted. In the initial (phase) two to three activities from the sectors… will be considered for designing and piloting the programme and then more activities will be added from the selected sectors in subsequent phases,” the notification read.

Green Credits will be tradable outcomes and will act as incentives. Initially, the Credits will be made available to individual and entities, engaged in select activities and who undertake environmental intervention. These Green Credits will be made available for trading on a domestic market platform.

(With agency inputs)