Sacred groves represent a fusion of faith-based practice and biodiversity conservation. Critically evaluate the significance of a dedicated scheme like the Aastha Van Sanrakshan Yojana.

Sacred groves — forest patches protected for generations through religious sanction, known as Devrai, Kavu or Sarna — are India's oldest conservation institution. The Aastha Van Sanrakshan Yojana (AVSY), approved by the 7th Governing Body of National CAMPA with a corpus of ₹3,000 crore for 2026-31 covering nearly 15,000 groves [1], formalises this faith–ecology link, though its success rests on how sensitively it is implemented.

Significance of the scheme

• Ecological: groves are relict refugia of old-growth and endemic species; the scheme targets restoration of degraded groves, groundwater recharge and climate resilience [1].
• Fiscal reorientation: it channels CAMPA money — so far dominated by compensatory plantation and quality improvement of forests [2] — toward conserving existing natural forest, ecologically superior to monoculture afforestation.
• Cultural–legal: it mainstreams traditional ecological knowledge into policy, complementing Biodiversity Heritage Sites under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 [3], and can dovetail with the community's right to protect, regenerate and manage community forest resources under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 [4].
• Accountability: CAMPA's new GIS-based monitoring lab allows satellite verification of outcomes rather than paper reporting [1].

Critical concerns

• Bureaucratisation: state-funded fencing, signage and plantation may displace the community sanction that actually protected these groves.
• Tenure ambiguity: groves are variously recorded as revenue, private or unclassed forest land; without legal clarity, funds may not secure protection.
• Absorption record: CAMPA has a long-standing problem of delayed Centre–State transfers and under-utilisation, again reviewed at this meeting alongside NPV progress [1].
• Incomplete coverage: estimates of India's grove numbers vary widely, so a fixed target risks excluding smaller, unmapped groves; commercial eco-tourism could further erode sanctity.

AVSY is therefore a welcome shift from compensating forest loss to rewarding community-conserved landscapes. Its promise will be realised if grove mapping, Gram Sabha-led management plans and outcome-based GIS audits precede spending — making faith the manager and the state merely the facilitator, in the spirit of Articles 48A and 51A(g).