Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Friday, June 5, 2026 — coinciding with World Environment Day — announced the launch of the Rajiv Gandhi Van Sanvardhan Yojana, a community-driven afforestation scheme that offers Rs 1,40,000 to local groups for planting saplings across one hectare of land in the state.

Context

Posting in Hindi on X, Chief Minister Sukhu declared: 'प्रदेश के जंगल हमारी जीवनरेखा हैं' ('The forests of the state are our lifeline'), adding that protecting and expanding them is 'a shared responsibility of all of us.' The announcement frames forest conservation not merely as a government obligation but as a civic compact between the state and its communities.

Under the scheme, Yuva Mandals (youth clubs), Mahila Mandals (women's associations), and women from Self-Help Groups (SHGs) who carry out plantation on one hectare of land will receive a financial incentive of Rs 1,40,000. The direct cash transfer model is designed to make afforestation economically rewarding for rural households.

Policy Backdrop

Himachal Pradesh has a long tradition of community forest stewardship. Since the 1990s, the state has operated Joint Forest Management (JFM) committees under the framework of the National Forest Policy, 1988, which brought village-level bodies into the governance of forest land. The new scheme builds on that lineage by attaching a direct monetary incentive to measurable plantation activity.

Himalayan states face acute climate pressures — including landslides, glacial retreat, and erratic monsoons — that make forest cover a critical buffer. National programmes such as CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority) and the Green India Mission have channelled central funds to states for tree-cover expansion, and state-level schemes like this one complement those efforts. India's national target of bringing 33 per cent of its geographical area under forest and tree cover gives additional urgency to such initiatives.

Stakeholders and Impact

The scheme's design deliberately targets women-led institutions and youth groups, two segments that are both economically vulnerable and deeply embedded in village ecosystems. By routing the Rs 1,40,000 incentive through SHGs and Mahila Mandals, the government links livelihood support with ecological outcomes — a dual dividend that has found favour in development-policy circles.

Rural communities in Himachal Pradesh depend on forests for fodder, fuelwood, non-timber forest produce, and watershed services that sustain agriculture and drinking-water supplies. Expanding forest cover on degraded or marginal land can therefore strengthen household resilience alongside the state's broader environmental commitments. The inclusion of Yuva Mandals also signals an attempt to engage younger residents who might otherwise migrate to urban centres.

What's Next

The effectiveness of the Rajiv Gandhi Van Sanvardhan Yojana will hinge on the release of detailed implementation guidelines, transparent fund-disbursement timelines, and credible third-party monitoring of sapling survival rates — the metric that separates genuine afforestation from paper plantations. Observers will watch whether the state Forest Department has the field capacity to verify one-hectare plots across Himachal Pradesh's difficult terrain.

With the scheme announced on World Environment Day 2026, the Sukhu government has set a symbolic baseline. The coming months will test whether the financial incentive is sufficient to mobilise community groups at scale and whether the plantation targets translate into durable, measurable increases in the state's forest cover.