National Action Plan To Combat Desertification (NAPCD)- Policy Update 2025

Background

India introduced the National Action Plan to Combat Desertification (NAPCD) in 2001 after joining the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The plan was not just a policy decision, it was also a response to a reality that millions of people live with every day. Large parts of India, especially the dry regions of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Karnataka, face repeated droughts and shrinking vegetation. When soil loses its fertility and water becomes scarce, farmers struggle to grow crops, livestock suffer, and entire communities see their livelihoods threatened.

Land degradation affects nearly one-third of India’s land area, meaning that the issue is not just environmental; it is economic and social as well.

Through NAPCD, India began restoring degraded land by planting trees, building check dams and watershed structures, improving soil health, and promoting crops that can survive in low-rainfall areas. Instead of creating a new scheme from scratch, the government connected the plan with existing programmes such as MGNREGS for water conservation, CAMPA and the National Afforestation Programme for forest restoration, and PMKSY for irrigation planning. This ensured that different departments worked together instead of operating in silos.

India’s initial target under the UNCCD was to restore 21 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. The plan was revised in 2019 and again in 2023, when the target was enhanced to 26 million hectares and paired with a goal to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent through land-based interventions.

These efforts mainly benefit the people who depend on land the most, like farmers, forest-fringe communities, and those in drought-prone areas. Restoring land improves water availability, supports livelihoods, and helps make rural families more secure.

Functioning

The NAPCD functions through a convergent, multi-sectoral framework leveraging afforestation, watershed development, soil conservation, drought-mitigation, and degraded land restoration. Key working features include:

Selection of vulnerable and degraded sites, especially arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions.
Convergence of existing government programmes (forest & environment, agriculture, rural development) to deliver cost-efficient eco-restoration.
Use of remote sensing, GIS and the “Desertification & Land Degradation Atlas of India” for mapping and monitoring of degraded land.
Capacity building of local institutions, adoption of sustainable land management (SLM) practices, and community participation are core components.

Challenges remain in functioning: many interventions are fragmented, institutional coordination across ministries and states is uneven, and many identified degraded lands still await restoration.

Performance

In recent years, the plan has gained renewed emphasis following the 2023 revision of targets. The Ministry reported that India estimated around 97.84 million hectares of land degraded by 2018-19. While officially published figures for the last 2-3 years on hectares restored under NAPCD specifically are limited, the following pointers give a sense of performance:

India has committed to restoring 26 million hectares by 2030, up from an earlier commitment of around 21 million hectares.
The 2023 plan emphasizes the convergence of afforestation schemes to accelerate restoration.
However, reports show large variation across states in implementation; many states lag in institutional capacity and data‐tracking, which limits uniform progress.

A full disaggregated state-wise dashboard is still required to evaluate performance thoroughly.

Impact

The NAPCD’s impact is multi-dimensional:

It reinforces institutional mechanisms for sustainable land management, which is critical for livelihoods in semi-arid and arid zones.
By restoring degraded land and improving vegetation cover, it contributes to carbon sequestration and climate mitigation, supporting India’s Nationally Determined Contributions(NDCs) and the global land-degradation neutral target.
Community participation and watershed-based restoration enhance water-holding capacity, soil health, and therefore enable improved agricultural productivity in vulnerable regions.
More broadly, tackling desertification under the NAPCD helps maintain ecosystem services, reduce migration from degraded lands, and preserve biodiversity.

Yet, several gaps persist: many degraded patches remain untreated, monitoring remains weak, and benefits are not uniformly distributed across states and communities.

Emerging Issues

Limited awareness and capacity at the local level: Many communities in degraded zones remain uninformed or poorly equipped to engage with restoration schemes.
Funding and resource bottlenecks: While targets are ambitious, mobilisation of funds and timely release remain variable across states.
Institutional fragmentation: Coordination between environment, agriculture, watershed and rural-development departments is weak in many places.
Data and monitoring gap: Real-time tracking of restoration activity, verification of outcomes, and standardised state-wise data are uncommon.
Uneven state performance: Some states progress fast; others lag due to weak institutional mechanisms and absence of tailored action plans.

Way Forward

As the NAPCD moves toward its 2030 land-restoration target, its success will depend on translating these targets into ground-level impact. The focus must shift from area targets to sustainable outcomes such as improved soil health, enhanced livelihoods, and resilient ecosystems. Policymakers should prioritise convergence of allied programmes (forestry, agriculture, water, rural livelihoods), adopt emerging geospatial and digital monitoring tools, and enhance community-driven restoration models. With proper consolidation, NAPCD can become a cornerstone of India’s ecological and sustainable development agenda, fostering resilient landscapes, revitalising rural economies, and reinforcing India’s commitment to a land-degradation neutral future.

References

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. (2023). India’s National Plan (NAP) to Combat Desertification and Land Degradation Through Forestry Interventions. Government of India. Retrieved from https://moef.gov.in/uploads/2023/07/NAP%20final-2023.pdf. (MoEFCC)
Ministry of Environment & Forests. (2001). National Action Programme to Combat Desertification – Volume I: Status of Desertification. Government of India. Retrieved from https://moef.gov.in/uploads/2017/08/national-action-programme-to-combat-desertification.pdf. (MoEFCC)
Press Information Bureau. (2023, February). National Action Plan to Combat Desertification, 2023 highlights convergent planning and restoration of 26 million hectares by 2030. Government of India. Retrieved from https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2038292. (Press Information Bureau)
Mathew, J. (2023, October 25). “9.5 % of India’s land degraded, 36.8 % drought-prone: UNCCD report.” Fortune India. Retrieved from https://fortuneindia.com/macro/95-of-indias-land-degraded-368-drought-prone-unccd/114559. (Fortune India)

About the contributor: Muskan Thakur is a Research Intern at IMPRI and a Master’s student in Economics at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune.

Acknowledgement: The author extends her sincere gratitude to the IMPRI team and Ms. Aasthaba Jadeja for her invaluable guidance throughout the process.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.