Guwahati, June 8: The Assam forest department today inked a Rs 372-crore agreement with a French development agency to launch its first externally aided project.

The multi-faceted Assam project deal was signed between Aude Flogny, country director AFD (Agence Française de Dévelo-ppement) and Saraswati Prasad, principal secretary of the environment and forest department, today in the presence of forest minister Rakibul Hussain.

This is AFD’s first forest sector project in India.

The French development agency, which provides development assistance to foreign countries, will provide Euros 60 million (Rs 372 crore) for five years.

The Assam forest department will pay 10 per cent of the project cost.

Forest minister Rakibul Hussain said the project would help the department in sectors like infrastructure and capacity building, plantations, working plan and forest plan and providing livelihood support to fringe villagers.

After the agreement was signed the team also met chief minister Tarun Gogoi.

A society will be registered to execute the project, Hussain said.

AFD has been authorised by the French government to operate in India with a mandate focusing on global challenges: climate change, biodiversity protection, combating emerging diseases likely to become pandemics.

AFD’s intervention in India was the subject of an agreement signed between the governments of both countries on the occasion of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to India in January 2008.

“Work will start soon after completing some formalities and the project will help the department in various ways,” said Hussain.

A forest official said the support is welcome because there are not enough funds from the government to aid sectors like infrastructure building.

“By drawing on past and present experience in other continents, AFD brings to India a broad base of French experience in the domain of sustainable and participative management of forest ecosystems,” Flogny told The Telegraph.

There will better teamwork among the villagers, government and institutions, she added.

The forest official said the overall project objective was to help the state to manage its forest resources in a sustainable manner via a planning process that is integrated, multi-scale and participative.

“With this in mind, the main objective of the project is to restore (in collaboration with the forest-dependent communities the forests) ecosystems in order to improve the standards of living of the communities and to ensure the preservation and sustainable use of forest resources” the official said.

The project document brief says the project’s activities will reform and considerably improve the workings of the different actors in the forest sector (forest department, NGOs, village organisations).

“The fact that the project will be implemented by the forest department (an existing entity that is both solid and experienced) guarantees the project’s long-term viability,” the document states.