India’s extreme poverty rate has fallen sharply, with only 5.25% of the population living below the revised USD 3.00/day poverty line.
Punjab recorded 5,114 stubble-burning incidents in 2025, but Punjab and Haryana together achieved a 90% reduction compared with 2022.
India ranked 23rd in the Climate Change Performance Index 2026, with emissions falling nearly 8% between 2019 and 2020.
Kerala has designated 30 hotspots for human–wildlife conflict as part of its state-level disaster management response.
Critical mineral mining is expanding under new forest rules, while Ganga-cleaning projects and groundwater assessments show varied progress.
A total of 5,114 paddy residue burning incidents were reported in Punjab between September 15 and November 30, 2025, according to the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), Kirti Vardhan Singh, Union minister of state for environment, forest and climate change, told the Lok Sabha. Punjab and Haryana together recorded about a 90 per cent reduction in fire incidents during the 2025 paddy harvesting season compared with the same period in 2022.
India’s extreme poverty rate fell from 27.12 per cent in 2011-12 to 5.25 per cent in 2022-23 following the World Bank’s revision of the International Poverty Line from $2.15 to $3 per day (2021 Purchasing Power Parity), Pankaj Chaudhary, Union minister of state for finance, told the Lok Sabha. The number of people living in extreme poverty declined from 34.4 crore to 7.5 crore over this period.
India has been ranked 23rd in the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2026, published by non-profit North-South initiative Germanwatch, Singh told the Lok Sabha. Annual variations in CCPI rankings depend on the organisation’s methodology and the weightage assigned to parameters including greenhouse-gas emissions, renewable-energy share, energy-use trends and climate-policy assessments.
India’s net greenhouse-gas emissions in 2020 were 2,437 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent, according to India’s Fourth Biennial Update Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, submitted in 2024, Singh told the Lok Sabha. This represents a 7.93 per cent reduction from 2019 levels, mainly due to a 5.7 per cent decline in emissions from the energy sector and a 9.5 per cent decline from industrial processes and product use.
Human-wildlife conflict was declared a “state-specific disaster” in Kerala via government orders dated March 7, 2024, Singh told the Lok Sabha. In 2024, 271 panchayats and municipalities across 12 landscapes were identified as conflict-affected areas, of which 30 were designated as hotspots.
The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change notified the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Amendment Rules, 2025 on August 31, 2025, G Kishan Reddy, Union minister of coal and mines, told the Rajya Sabha. The notification allows compensatory afforestation on degraded forest land — twice the area proposed for diversion — for mining of critical and strategic minerals listed under Part D of the First Schedule to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.
Of 34 critical mineral blocks auctioned so far, 29 were auctioned for composite licences and five for mining leases. Only two of the five mining-lease blocks involve forest land, and bidders must obtain forest clearance within prescribed timelines.
A total of 513 projects worth Rs 42,019 crore have been sanctioned under the Namami Gange Programme as of October 2025, of which 344 have been completed, Raj Bhushan Choudhary, Union minister of state for jal shakti, told the Rajya Sabha. Of 216 sewerage infrastructure projects — costing Rs 34,809 crore and aimed at treating polluted river stretches — 138 sewage treatment plants with a combined capacity of 3,806 million litres per day have been completed and made operational.
The 2025 assessment estimates India’s total annual groundwater recharge at 448.52 billion cubic metres (BCM) and the annual extractable groundwater resource at 407.75 BCM, Choudhary told the Rajya Sabha. Annual groundwater extraction stands at 247.22 BCM, placing the national Stage of Extraction at 60.63 per cent.