Tropical dry deciduous forests are India's most extensive forest formation, and the Central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra hold one of the largest contiguous blocks of this forest type in South Asia. This review synthesises findings from a defined set of peer-reviewed studies, published on carbon stock estimation, remote sensing, and disturbance ecology in Indian tropical dry and moist deciduous forests, with explicit attention to what each source actually measured rather than to a single tidy figure. Reported above-ground carbon stocks for Central Indian dry deciduous forest range roughly from the low twenties to just over a hundred megagrams of carbon per hectare depending on forest type, disturbance history, and critically which allometric model and predictor variables were used; several studies show that this methodological choice alone can shift estimates by a wide margin. Remote sensing studies combining Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Landsat, and GEDI spaceborne LiDAR data with Random Forest and related machine-learning algorithms have achieved moderate predictive accuracy for above-ground biomass in Indian forest conditions, though reported performance varies considerably across studies and sensor combinations. Below-ground and soil organic carbon remain comparatively under-sampled specifically for Central Indian dry deciduous forest, though studies from other Indian tropical forest types indicate soil carbon is a substantial share of total ecosystem carbon. Fire-frequency studies from Central Indian tiger reserves show effects that differ by tree size class and by forest type — in one moist deciduous forest community, moderate fire frequency was associated with higher carbon storage in the adult tree layer but a marked decline in the juvenile layer cautioning against any single generalisation about how fire affects carbon stocks. On the policy side, India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) has moved from framework to partial implementation: compliance obligations entered into force for several energy-intensive sectors, and the voluntary Offset Mechanism opened for entity registration in mid-2025, with full market operation targeted for mid-2026. However, a forestry-specific methodology under the Offset Mechanism, high-resolution, satellite-based carbon monitoring framework specific to Central Indian tropical dry forest, do not yet appear in the published literature reviewed here.

Keywords— aboveground biomass; carbon stock; tropical dry deciduous forest; Central India; remote sensing; GEDI; REDD+; Carbon Credit Trading Scheme