Employment generation in rural parts of country would pick up as the Supreme Court on Friday cleared central government's proposal to release Rs 5000-cr afforestation plan to cover bare parts of the country.

The required money will be used from the forest fund worth Rs 11,400 crore, without affecting the flagship NREGA projects already going on in rural areas.

Delivering its judgment, the bench headed by Chief Justice, K G Balakrishnan said, "The money should be utilized for providing employment to the unemployed people by providing minimum wages for afforestation projects." However, the apex court did not set any time limit to complete the project, cautioning government against misuse of forest fund.

Senior Advocate Harish Salve said that the funds collected by the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) has increased to Rs 11,400 crore  as the amount kept  with a public sector bank remained unused since 2002.

State CAMPAs, state level bodies comprising Chief Minister as head, will get their due share in the released amount out of which at least 5 per cent will be used for monitoring, evaluation and implementation of project.

Meanwhile, states have been directed to submit progress report before the apex court after every six months.