Achieving 33% forest cover unrealistic: Ramesh

India's ambitious target of bringing 33% of its land under green cover is not realistic given the population pressure and the pressure for development, Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh today said.

"This is (the target) unrealistic in a country like India where the population is 1.2 billion and set to become 1.6 billion by 2040. With the population and development pressure in our country, to expect India to suddenly grow a green cover from the present 21% to 33% is totally unrealistic," Ramesh said during Green Landscape Summit-2011 organised by CII.

He also pointed out that about 40% of the Indian forest is open degraded forest land, which means when you look up, you easily see the Sun (In forests with good tree cover, it is not possible to see the sun).

Ramesh blamed the IT industry for not adhering to green house norms.

"The IT industry is a huge guzzler for air conditioning. IT buildings are horribly inefficient when it comes to meeting energy efficient levels. I close my ears when the IT czars are giving long lectures on green building and when I see their building which are poor advertisements of green habitats, the Minister said.