Green GDP of States

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.

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.

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.