In her budget speech, the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitaram, mentioned in passing an initiative called MISHTI, for ‘Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Incomes’.
Under MISHTI, the finance minister said, mangrove plantation would be taken up along the coastline and on salt pan lands, through convergence between MGNREGS, a social security scheme that provides work to rural folk and CAMPA Fund, which is a pool of money for making afforestation.
It may be intriguing why the humble mangroves took root in a budget speech, but these coastal plants, which live half-buried in salt water but need fresh water to flower and fruit, are set to play an important role in India meeting its ‘net zero’ targets.