Rewards to adopt “Go Green” policy.

The Union Government of India is expected to ask the thirteenth Finance Commission, a constitutional body responsible for recommending sharing of taxes by Centre and States, to incorporate the challenges of ecology management and environment protection into development policies. The government is expected to pay incentives to states for following and implementing “go green” policy for the next five years. There is a plan to introduce user charges for water and power.
According to the constitution of India, the centre has to set up a finance commission to decide the tax sharing formula every five years. While recommendations other than tax sharing is not binding, the move to include ecology in the terms of reference of the finance commission is felt as a result of increase consciousness of the threats emerging from climate change and global warming. The commission may suggest rewards for states which follow or promote green policy that minimize environmental damage by higher share of divisible pool of central taxes or by increasing the grants in central assistance instead of borrowings. The twelfth finance commission had also recommended a Rs. 10,000 crores allocation to reward states that maintained higher green cover at the cost of their economic development.