Centre to mull 1400 km of 'great green wall' to India to tackle desertification

To tackle desertification, the centre has plans to create a 1400 km long and 5 km great green wall from Gujarat to Delhi-Haryana border. However, the project is yet to be approved.

The initiative which was a part of the agenda in the conference of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) would become a legacy programme in India's efforts in dealing with the environmental degradation. India sought the replica of the green wall of Africa which was mooted a decade ago but has not come into existence due to the involvement of other countries.

The great green wall is believed to restore degrading land through afforestation along with Aravali mountain range spread across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi and also act as a barrier for dust coming from the deserts in Western India and Pakistan.

With the green wall, India have plans to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. The country has around 96.4 MHA of degraded land which is 29.3 per cent of total geographical area and most of it was identified at Aravalli.

A report by the ISRO in 2016 revealed that states like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi were among the states with more than 50 per cent of the total degraded land.