Weak inter-departmental convergence is often cited as a key reason for underperformance of centrally sponsored environmental schemes in India. Discuss with reference to the Green India Mission.

The Green India Mission (GIM), one of the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, seeks to protect, restore and enhance India's forest cover through a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures [1]. Designed as a convergence-driven scheme, its underperformance illustrates how coordination failure, more than intent, limits environmental outcomes.

Convergence is central to GIM's design

• The Mission document envisages pooling of resources with other forestry, rural employment and watershed programmes, since GIM funds alone cannot cover its landscape-scale mandate [2].
• Its goals span multiple ecosystem services — biodiversity, hydrology, forest-based livelihoods and CO₂ sequestration — cutting across forest, rural development, tribal welfare and agriculture departments [1].

Evidence of convergence failure

• A CAG performance audit covering 2015-16 to 2024-25 across 16 States/UTs found weak coordination with other central and state schemes, diluting on-ground impact [4].
• Against a target of 1.4 million hectares of quality improvement in forest cover, only 0.11384 mha was achieved — a 91.87% shortfall; increase in forest cover reached just 0.03409 mha, a 97.57% shortfall [4].
• Site selection often bypassed bottom-up vulnerability assessment, so low-priority areas were treated while degraded landscapes were left out [4].

But convergence is not the sole explanation

• Fund constraints: utilisation stood at roughly 28% of the revised allocation in 2025-26, and allocations have trailed ministry demands [3].
• Weak monitoring: most States do not measure carbon sequestered, and climate change is inadequately reflected in scheme design; only about 0.17 mha of plantation has been undertaken since 2015-16 against the 5+5 mha mission target [3].

Convergence failure is thus a symptom of a wider institutional deficit spanning funding, monitoring and planning. A joint district-level greening plan, common outcome indicators shared across departments, and third-party survival audits can align these silos. Strengthened in this manner, GIM can credibly support India's Nationally Determined Contribution goal of an additional carbon sink of 2.5-3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent [1].