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Centre to start measuring ‘green GDP’ of States
Why it is in news?
- Starting this year, the government will begin a five-year exercise to compute district-level data of the country’s environmental wealth.
- The numbers will eventually be used to calculate every State’s ‘green’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
- The metric will help with a range of policy decisions, such as compensation to be paid during land acquisition, calculation of funds required for climate mitigation, and so on.
- This is the first time such a national environment survey is being undertaken. India’s environmental diversity and riches are universally recognised but have never been quantified.
Pilot project
- A pilot project is set to begin this September in 54 districts.
- Land will be demarcated into grids with about 15-20 grids per district.
- These will capture the diversity in the State’s geography, farmland, wildlife, and emissions pattern, and will be used to compute a value.
- The funds for the pilot project are already available. But the budget has not been specified.
- Much of the data required for the inventory would be sourced from datasets that already exist with other government ministries.
Green skilling programme
- The government has also launched a ‘green skilling’ programme under which youth, particularly school dropouts, would be trained in a range of ‘green jobs’.
- Some of the labour required for the survey would also be sourced from the green-skilled workforce.
Source
The Hindu