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Strategy for Environmental-Economic Accounts in India 2026–2030

Kumari Sonali

Strategy for Environmental-Economic Accounts in India 2026–2030:

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the Strategy for Environmental-Economic Accounts in India 2026–2030, a roadmap to strengthen environmental-economic accounting in India.

  • The Strategy for Environmental-Economic Accounts in India 2026–2030, released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), provides a strategic roadmap for strengthening environmental accounting in India, improving data quality, addressing data gaps and expanding the coverage of environmental accounts.
  • It builds upon the Strategy for Environmental-Economic Accounts in India 2022–2026, which prioritised Material Flow Accounts (MFAs), Ocean Accounts, Energy Accounts, and thematic accounts for biodiversity and urban areas.
  • It is envisaged as a dynamic, self-evolving guidance framework, identifying priority areas, implementation milestones and potential data sources to support the systematic development and monitoring of environmental accounts.
  • The strategy follows the UN-endorsed System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework, which integrates environmental and economic data to measure the relationship between natural resources, ecosystems and economic activities.
  • The strategy seeks to develop new accounts and expand existing coverage of forests, minerals, soil resources, land, water, carbon stocks, environment-related activities, biodiversity and environmental statistics.
  • These areas are guided primarily by the recommendations of Green National Accounts in India – A Framework and the SEEA Central Framework (SEEA-CF).
  • Strategic Focus: The roadmap identifies two broad areas:
    • Strategic Area A – Quality Improvements, Coverage and Bridging Data Gaps: Improving the quality, timeliness and comparability of environmental accounts by identifying potential data sources, addressing data gaps, standardising methodologies and strengthening data collection.
    • Strategic Area B – Communication and Outreach: Improving awareness, accessibility and utilisation of environmental accounts among policymakers and other stakeholders.
  • The strategy complements the System of National Accounts (SNA) 2025, which strengthens the recognition of natural resources and non-produced assets within national wealth accounting, facilitating better integration of environmental and economic statistics.