The problem

back to issue

THE late B.B. Vohra drew the attention of policy-makers in government in the 1970s to the absence of a well-considered approach to issues relevant to the proper management of the land resources of the country. The National Commission on Agriculture also dealt with this matter. Some years later, a group of concerned persons felt that an organization should be created, ‘outside’ the government, which would particularly concern itself with ‘wastelands’.

Thus was born the Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD) in April 1982. Surprisingly, the funds needed to see SPWD through its infancy did not come from government, but from the Ford Foundation, a private U.S. charity. All credit should go to the latter for stepping in to support the SPWD initiative in uncharted lands.

The Ministry of Agriculture estimated that 175 mha of the land area of the country were wastelands. This estimate suffered from the error of overlapping wasteland categories. D.R. Bhumbla who was Executive Director of SPWD in its early years was a distinguished soil scientist. With Arvind Khare, a professional in SPWD, he provided the first comprehensive estimate of the different categories of wastelands outside the forest areas in each state (published in 1984). This figure came to a total of 93.69 mha (Tables 1 and 2).

The classification was based on soil types and on ecological qualities such as salinity, alkalinity, water erosion, wind erosion, water-logging and so on. Instead of economic criteria the focus was on ecological instability, loss of topsoil and toxicity in the root zones. They noted two shortcomings in the conventional productivity-linked definitions used by the agriculture ministry in arriving at its total of 175 mha wastelands. Productivity depends on the availability and utilisation of technology at a point in time, and second, this test usually ignores ecological considerations. The Bhumbla-Khare estimate has held the field for years.

As a result of the efforts made by concerned persons, the government set up the National Wastelands Development Board (NWDB) in 1985 with Kamla Chowdhry as chairperson. The Board set up a technical group which in 1986 standardized the definition of wastelands, essential to secure uniformity of the database. The following definition was adopted: Wastelands refer to degraded lands which can be brought under vegetative cover with reasonable effort and which is currently lying under-utilized, and land which is deteriorating for lack of appropriate water and soil management or on account of natural causes.

This definition is generally considered satisfactory since it refers to the ecological factors underlying the erosion of land as also identifies the economic approach to deal with the problem. However, many other researchers and agencies have defined wasteland categories, and their utility for planning measures for their reclamation. They have also produced estimates of wasteland areas, as may be seen in Table 3. Refinements of the definition have also received attention of the government. The one used by the March 2000 Wastelands Atlas of India prepared by the National Remote Sensing Agency for the Department of Land Resources states: ‘Degraded land which can be brought under vegetative cover with reasonable effort, and which is currently under-utilized and land which is deteriorating for lack of appropriate water and soil management or on account of natural causes. Wastelands can result from inherent/imposed disabilities such as by location, environment, chemical and physical properties of the soil or financial or management constraints.’

Within this broad definition the Atlas lists 13 categories of wastelands: gullied land and ravines; land with or without scrub, waterlogged and marshy land; land affected by salinity/alkalinity-coastal/inland; shifting cultivation area; underutilised degraded notified forest land; degraded pastures/grazing land; degraded land under plantation crop; sands – inland/coastal; mining industrial wastelands; barren rocky/stony waste/sheet rock area; steep sloping area; snow covered and/or glacial area.

The Atlas shows about 63.85 mha of total wasteland area (including 14.06 mha of degraded notified forest lands), i.e., 20% of the geographical area covered in the exercise, excluding 12 mha of J&K (Tables 4 and 5). It also gives a breakdown of this total area by the districts in 25 states and in 20 union territory districts.

No estimate has so far indicated the number of people who live in the different categories of wastelands or how they use them, and its relevance for sustainability. This is a serious shortcoming. The Atlas itself, in the introduction, recognizes the increasing pressure of population and the excessive demand for more land, both for agriculture and for non-agricultural uses, which has resulted in the creation of vast stretches of wastelands. It has also been seen as leading to ecological imbalances. On the other hand, for the purpose of reclaiming wastelands, it does help to know the kind of degradation which has happened and its causes. But, because people live off the land resources, reclamation programmes cannot be merely technical, ignoring socio-economic considerations.

The 1995 report of the high level committee on wastelands development (the Mohan Dharia Committee) analysed the land use statistics available for 305 million ha out of the 329 mha land area of the country, and noted that there was much confusion regarding the extent of wastelands. In the committee’s view confusion arose from differing definitions of wastelands used by various agencies; also because these agencies failed to distinguish between lands which had gone out of productive use because of extreme degradation and lands which were still in use although these too were degraded to some extent. The latter it preferred to describe as ‘degraded lands’.

In the committee’s view, the need of the hour was not to get lost in efforts to determine the extent of wastelands and their precise locations, but to recognize that lands subject to erosion (around 150 mha in its estimate) constitute the biggest threat to the country’s economy. Not only do these lands suffer increasing loss of productivity with progressive loss of topsoil, but they contribute to the loss of a great deal of priceless sweet water through excessive runoff around denuded slopes, carrying soil with it. The Dharia Committee used 175 mha as its estimate of wastelands (degraded lands).

This estimate seems to have ignored the lands affected by salinity and alkalinity noted by Bhumbla and Khare. Such lands are significant in the Gangetic plains, western coastal tracts, and in the irrigation commands in the large projects of the last three decades, mainly because of drainage congestion. These lands can be returned to substantial productivity levels with appropriate technical inputs and financial investment. Equally, the single-crop lands in the Sundarbans can be treated to produce a second crop with appropriate technology and agronomic practices. It is important not to ignore such lands when considering wastelands reclamation policies because very large numbers of rural people depend on them for their livelihoods.

This consideration needs to be kept in mind while discussing wastelands and their reclamation for productive uses. The technology chosen must subserve the primary objective of stabilizing and enhancing the productive potential of wastelands for sustaining local people’s livelihoods. This is important because food and employment security from the land resources cannot as yet be substituted by off-farm occupations to any significant extent in these densely populated areas, given the present status of economic development.

When the NWDB was set up in 1985, the then prime minister thought it possible to reclaim about 5 mha every year. Without going into the details about the basis on which he was given that figure, one may say that it was wholly unrealistic, as proved by subsequent experience. A major feature of the work of the NWDB in its initial years was the concentration on tree plantation as the key reclamation activity, a legacy from ‘social forestry’ years following the 1976 Report of the National Commission on Agriculture. Possibly because of the ‘social forestry’, wastelands development and the NWDB were placed in the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), and the states followed suit.

The emphasis on ‘social forestry’ was predicated on the understanding in official circles that all local people needed was fuelwood, fodder and small timber. Those who had underutilized or unused lands were encouraged to take up ‘farm forestry’, which did well in terms of areas covered, according to official statistics. But the same could not be said of the reclamation efforts in common lands in the official programmes. Far too often the choice of tree species was restricted to quick-growing and non-browsable varieties, irrespective of the extent to which these species could meet local needs of various kinds of biomass. The official programmes by and large ignored the value of shrubs, bushes and grasses. There was no attempt to evoke the interest and participation of local communities when social forestry was taken up in common lands.

The NWDB realized this lack and in 1989-90 re-framed its approach to incorporate community participation in its work. Around the same time, in the MoEF, serious consideration was being given to introducing a new paradigm – of joint management of forests with the local communities as partners of the forest department. In a somewhat similar vein, the Ministry of Agriculture launched the National Watershed Development Programme in rainfed areas, which called for the participation of farmers. At local levels, non-government organizations in many parts of the country had already been working on reclaiming degraded lands with the involvement of the communities and with due regard to the importance of restoring the health of water regimes. SPWD was a pioneer in this field and supported many NGO partners in their efforts to reclaim degraded lands and water regimes, and in the process to design and implement innovation techniques and methods.

One of the important lessons from the field has been that it is more or less irrelevant to find a label to fit local wastelands into one or the other categories defined by experts. What is important is to understand the local causes of degradation of the land and water regimes in the areas subject to the natural processes of erosion and other causes. Equally important is the understanding of the impacts of the degradation on the livelihoods of different sections of local people – whether they own any land or otherwise depend on what the common property resources produce and on agricultural or other labour for wages.

Unless these aspects are studied and understood by the external agency (a government department or an NGO), its intervention, however well-intentioned, will not create a stake in the reclamation work for the community as a whole, and post-project maintenance and sustainable management will suffer, as will equity. This has been the experience in numerous reclamation and development projects in many parts of the country. In other words, reclamation of degraded land and water regimes is not just a technical matter.

This point needs to be strongly emphasized for far too often external intervention, particularly by a government agency, is planned on just technology; it is assumed that the agency is writing on a clean slate, ignoring how the land and water were used and by whom and for what purposes. An extreme case is the view often advanced by some scientists that the government should by law prescribe how different classes of land ought to be used. Such rigidities often creep into the technical plans made for watershed development for instance, usually resulting in failure to secure substantive interest and participation and in less than cost-effective ways.

Watershed development at the small local level is one way of arresting degradation of land and water. It is certainly a good and efficient option, but in many places local conditions can be treated without the A to Z of strictly technical methods. Unfortunately, government programmes under the Rural Development Ministry’s Common Guidelines for Watershed Development – certainly a remarkable and commendable initiative – do not explicitly allow for innovations which may be locally appropriate and more cost-effective. It would be very desirable for the ministry, which provides funds tied to the common guidelines, to consider some kind of ‘venture’ funding to encourage alternatives which would be technically appropriate and less cost-intensive.

It is often thought that technology is neutral to equity, that technological choices cannot promote equity. This is not so. For instance, in plantation of green cover on lands subject to erosion to slow down runoff of rain water, it is possible to choose the species of trees, shrubs and grasses to ensure that sections of local people who depend on biomass from the common lands do get significant quantities of the specific biomass which they need. Again, it is possible to plan and build structures on streams along their courses so as to provide better moisture to lands alongside the upper reaches, which are usually with the poorer sections of farmers. The point is that equity considerations should be always kept in mind while designing the technical parts of a land treatment plan. For every component of it the question should be: Who will gain and who will lose?

Apart from the above, since local people are expected to contribute towards the cost of a treatment plan, it becomes important to keep the investment cost as low as possible. To the extent that this is achieved, government funds for wasteland reclamation and watershed development programmes would go a longer way.

For the landless and the small and marginal farmers, specially in the semi-arid and arid regions of the country, the common lands are the source of a number of biomass materials which they use for fuel, fodder, medicines and a variety of products which they use for their handicraft (baskets, mats, brooms). N.S. Jodha has in his seminal studies noted the degradation of the common lands over the decades and the consequent diminution of the availability of the varieties and quantities of biomass which the poor used. It is critical that the link between the fragile common lands and local livelihoods is kept in mind while planning and implementing wasteland reclamation through watershed development or other methods.

There are no definitive official estimates of common property resources (CPR) in India. Rights to CPRs may be ownership or user rights or both. Secondary data do not help to capture these fully. One attempt to identify CPRs by G.K. Kadekodi and Aslam Perwaiz (1998) may be seen in Table 6. Their figures for CPRs in the different states may be seen in Table 7. Vasundhara, published by the Department of Land Resources in the Ministry of Rural Development, has cited these figures.

These figures would be off the mark to the extent there are encroachments in CPRs, a fact of life in most states. The official machinery is usually lackadaisical in removing encroachments from CPRs. However, in many local situations, people have managed to persuade or pressurize the encroachers to pull out of the CPRs, usually for the purpose of developing them to produce fuelwood and fodder of which they feel acute shortages.

One of the causes of degradation of common property resources has been that access to them is open; anyone from the village or from neighbouring villages uses them without any kind of site-specific regulation by the community itself. This is a problem which is not practical to regulate by externally imposed rules. Decades ago, local communities had evolved their own rules which were followed by common consent. Robert Wade documented, for instance, what was done in villages which he studied in Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, Arun Agarwal has examined regulations made and followed in the past by villages in West Rajasthan.

Even today, as result of efforts made by NGOs in many places, communities have evolved their own local norms and rules for the use of grazing lands and forest areas which they protect. These are generally more effective than injunctions and prohibitions ordered by a government authority, though for a number of reasons there is sometimes a breakdown of the local system. Even in such cases the repair job done by local people is more effective than intervention by an external authority. There is a school of thought which feels that the open access to common property resources cannot be remedied except by an external regulatory authority, but our experience in the country proves otherwise.

Can anything be done to help the young people in the villages to be more conscious and caring towards their local land, water and forest environment? It is clear that this is necessary, and can best be done in the course of the educational process in schools and colleges. It would be good to catch them young, as the Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi of Almora has demonstrated through the use of work books introduced into the school system which enable teachers and pupils to relate, in a quantitative way, what the local environments produce for people for their daily lives. In Unicef, subsequent to the Rio Summit, Primary Environmental Care (PEC) was proposed as a concept and practice to educate children. Unfortunately, not much headway has been made, if one looks at schools in villages and small towns across the country.

For the future, it is necessary that we continue to refine our understanding of the causes of degradation of our land resources, and of the deterioration of local water regimes which are critical for the productivity of our land resources. After all these natural resource endowments provide the sustenance for human and livestock populations, contributing a very substantial proportion to our national income. Fifty years ago our land resource per capita was just under one hectare, while now we have only less than one-third of that figure. We cannot therefore, as a country, afford to live with further degradation of our natural resources.

On the contrary it is imperative that the government and the users of those resources do everything possible to reverse the loss of productivity caused by past degradation. In order to do this sustainably, the problem cannot be considered just as a question of technology. Rather the informed involvement of the users – the farmers, the herdsmen, the forest dwellers – has to be secured in whatever measures are devised and best suited to local conditions. Civil society organisations have a crucial role to play in these efforts and processes, and must be allowed full scope to do so, though the legal framework has placed the governments (specially in the states) in an overarching authoritative position.

V.B. ESWARAN

 

TABLE 1

Estimate of Wastelands in India (non-forest area only)

(hectares in lacs)

States/UTs

Saline & Alkaline Lands

Wind Eroded Area

Water Eroded Area

Total

Andhra Pradesh

2.40

74.42

76.82

Assam

9.35

9.35

Bihar

0.04

38.92

38.96

Gujarat

12.14

7.04

52.35

71.53

Haryana

5.26

15.99

2.76

24.01

Himachal Pradesh

14.24

14.24

Jammu & Kashmir

5.31

5.31

Karnataka

4.04

67.18

71.22

Kerala

0.16

10.37

10.53

Madhya Pradesh

2.42

127.05

129.47

Maharashtra

5.34

110.26

115.60

Manipur

0.14

0.14

Meghalaya

8.15

8.15

Nagaland

5.08

5.08

Orissa

4.04

27.53

31.57

Punjab

6.88

4.63

11.51

Rajasthan

7.28

106.23

66.59

180.01

Sikkim

1.31

1.31

Tamil Nadu

0.04

33.88

33.92

Tripura

1.08

1.08

Uttar Pradesh

12.95

53.40

66.35

West Bengal

8.50

13.27

21.77

UTs

0.16

8.73

8.89

Total

71.65

129.26

736.00

936.91

 

TABLE 2

Estimate of Wastelands According to Land-use Categories (non-forest)

(in lacs hectares)

States/UTs

Barren & Unculturable

P&G

CW

Fallows other than

Current Fallows

Net Area Sown

Andhra Pradesh

2.40

9.48

8.88

10.53

11.17

34.36

Assam

1.85

1.30

1.22

0.54

4.44

Bihar

0.04

1.44

4.68

9.24

8.09

15.49

Gujarat

12.14

8.05

20.02

4.14

2.43

24.17

Haryana

5.26

0.51

0.36

0.35

1.98

Himachal Pradesh

10.24

1.36

0.04

0.24

2.36

Jammu & Kashmir

1.24

1.49

0.08

0.43

2.07

Karnataka

4.04

13.98

5.30

6.25

4.83

36.82

Kerala

0.16

0.06

1.23

0.27

0.21

8.60

Madhya Pradesh

2.42

28.77

18.49

9.33

4.29

66.17

Maharashtra

5.34

15.92

10.21

8.43

4.06

71.64

Manipur

0.14

Meghalaya

0.17

4.55

2.61

0.25

0.57

Nagaland

4.26

0.42

0.40

Orissa

4.04

5.34

2.60

1.38

2.65

15.56

Punjab

6.88

0.03

0.48

0.27

3.85

Rajasthan

7.28

18.34

68.82

21.18

9.69

35.94

Sikkim

1.03

0.01

0.01

0.26

Tamil Nadu

0.04

1.61

3.62

4.48

6.33

17.84

Tripura

0.02

0.02

0.01

1.03

Uttar Pradesh

12.95

2.98

13.38

6.07

4.66

26.31

West Bengal

8.50

2.12

11.15

UTs

0.16

0.14

2.68

3.81

1.04

1.06

Total

71.65

121.63

169.48

95.47

61.96

382.16

 

TABLE 3

Various Estimates of Wastelands

Source

Area (mha)

Estimated/ Scientific

National Commission on Agriculture (NCA-1976)

175.00

E

Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation

38.40

E

Ministry of Agriculture (1982)

175.00

E

Department of Environment and Forests (B.B. Vohra)

95.00

E

National Wasteland Development Board (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 1985)

123.00

E

National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, ICAR-1994

187.00

E

Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development (SPWD-1984)

129.58

E

National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA-1995)

75.50

S

Dr. N.C. Saxena (Secy. RD-WD)

125.00

E

 

TABLE 4

State-wise Wastelands of India

(Area in sq kms)

State

No. of Dists. Covered

Total Geog. Area of Dists. Covered

Total W.L. Area in Dists. Covered

% to Total Geog. Area

Andhra Pradesh

23

275068.00

51750.19

18.81

Arunachal Pradesh

13

83743.00

18326.25

21.88

Assam

23

78438.00

20019.17

25.52

Bihar

55

173877.00

20997.55

12.08

Goa

2

3702.00

613.27

16.57

Gujarat

25

196024.00

43021.28

21.95

Haryana

19

44212.00

3733.98

8.45

Himachal Pradesh

12

55673.00

31659.00

56.87

Jammu & Kashmir*

14

101387.00

65444.24

64.55

Karnataka

27

191791.00

20839.28

10.87

Kerala

14

38863.00

1448.18

3.73

Madhya Pradesh

62

443446.00

69713.75

15.72

Maharashtra

32

307690.00

53489.08

17.38

Manipur

9

22327.00

12948.62

58.00

Meghalaya

7

22429.00

9904.38

44.16

Mizoram

3

21081.00

4071.68

19.31

Nagaland

7

16579.00

8404.10

50.69

Orissa

30

155707.00

21341.71

13.71

Punjab

17

50362.00

2228.40

4.42

Rajasthan

32

342239.00

105639.11

30.87

Sikkim

4

7096.00

3569.58

50.30

Tripura

4

10486.00

1276.03

12.17

Tamil Nadu

29

130058.00

23013.90

17.70

Uttar Pradesh

83

294411.00

38772.80

13.17

West Bengal

18

88752.00

5718.48

6.44

Union Territory

20

10973.00

574.30

5.23

Total

584

3166414.00

638518.31

20.17

* Unsurveyed Area (J&K)

 

120849.00

   

Total Geo. Area

 

3287263.00

   

 

Source: 1:50000 scale wasteland maps prepared from Landsat Thematic Mapper/IRS LISS II/III Data.

 

TABLE 5

Category-wise Wastelands of India

(Area in sq kms)

Category

Total Wastelands

% to Total Geographical Area Covered

Gullied and/or Ravinous land

20553.35

0.65

Land with or without scrub

194014.29

6.13

Waterlogged and Marshy land

16568.45

0.52

Land affected by salinity/ alkalinity-coastal/inland

20477.38

0.65

Shifting Cultivation Area

35142.20

1.11

Under utilised/degraded notified forest land

140652.31

4.44

Degraded pastures/grazing land

25978.91

0.82

Degraded land under plantation crop

5828.09

0.18

Sands-Inland/Coastal

50021.65

1.58

Mining/Industrial wastelands

1252.13

0.04

Barren rocky/stony waste/sheet rock area

64584.77

2.04

Steep sloping area

7656.29

0.24

Snow covered and/or glacial area

55788.49

1.76

Total Wasteland Area

638518.31

20.17

Source: 1:50000 scale wasteland maps prepared from Landsat Thematic Mapper/IRS LISS II/III Data.

Note: 1,20,849.00 sq kms in Jammu & Kashmir is not mapped and hence not considered for calculating the percentage.

 

TABLE 6

Identification of Common Property Resources

Classification of Land

Included in CPR

Source of Sanction for Access (as assumed in the estimation)

Net Sown Area

No

On uncultivated owned land: limited user rights

Current Fallow

No

On uncultivated owned land: limited user rights

Fallow other then Current

Yes

User rights by convention

Cultivable waste

Yes

Partial user rights by convention

Pastures and other grazing land

Yes

User rights by law

Barren and uncultivable land

May be included

No access

Area put to non-agricultural use

No

No access

Forest Area

   

1. Reserved

No

No access

2. Protected

Partial

Partial user rights

3. Unclassed

Yes

User rights by law

 

TABLE 7

Common Property Land Resources in 1990-91 Period

(in thousand hectares)

State

Non-forest Areas

       

Forest CPR**

Total CPR (6+7)

 

PLCPR

PPG

CWL

OTHFL

TOTNFCPR (2+3+4+5)

PROT + UNCL

 

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

Andhra Pradesh

1953

843

780

1377

4953

1333

6286

Assam

366

184

104

84

738

1246

1984

Bihar

1433

126

372

999

2930

2418

5348

Gujarat

0

849

1920

60

2829

557

3386

Haryana

0

23

21

0

44

143

187

Himiachal Pradesh

392

1136

125

15

1668

3351

5019

Jammu & Kashmir

182

127

138

6

453

72

525

Karnataka

649

1098

446

457

2650

1011

3661

Kerala

0

2

95

27

124

0

124

Madhya Pradesh

1790

2734

1579

826

6929

7180

14109

Maharashtra

2120

1519

1028

983

5650

1546

7196

Meghalaya

39

17*

493

167

716

16

732

Nagaland

662

0*

99

110

871

0

871

Orissa

0

726

597

214

1537

3010

4547

Punjab

0

10

35

28

73

286

359

Rajasthan

2779

1912

5567

1927

12185

2011

14196

Tamil Nadu

627

124

290

1044

2085

314

2399

Tripura

39

0*

1

1

41

270

311

Uttar Pradesh

0

303

1034

884

2221

466

2687

West Bengal

0

7

106

51

164

482

646

Total

13031

11740

14830

9260

48861

25712

74573

 

Definitions: PLCPR – Private lands to which common access may exist; CWL – Cutturable wastelands; PPG – Permanent pastures and grazing lands; OTHFL – Other than current fallow; PROT + UNCL – Protected and unclassee forest lands; TOTNFCPR – PLCPR + CWL + PPG + OTHFL (total non-forest common property land resources)

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