Agricultural land shrinks; govt concerned
Updated: May 03, 2013 06:52:52pm
“As per the latest Land Use Statistics data (LUS, 2010-11) compiled by Directorate of Economics and Statistics; Ministry of Agriculture, the agricultural land in the country has marginally shrunk to 182.0 million hectares in 2010-11 as compared to 183.6 million hectares in 2001-02,” Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Tariq Anwar said in the Rajya Sabha today.
The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India indicates that lands falls under the purview of the state government. As a result, it is up to the state to frame suitable policies to prevent the diversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes.
On its part, the Centre has taken several steps including putting in place the National Policy for Farmers 2007 (NPF 2007) and National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy 2007 (NRRP 2007). Both the policies were sent to states and union territories for implementation.
NPF 2007 has recommended that “Prime farmland must be conserved for agriculture except under exceptional circumstances, provided that the agencies that are provided with agricultural land for non-agricultural projects should compensate for treatment and full development of equivalent degraded/wastelands elsewhere. For non-agricultural purposes, as far as possible, land with low biological potential for farming would be earmarked and allocated.”
Besides, state governments were advised to earmark lands with low biological potential such as uncultivable land, land affected by salinity, acidity, etc for non-agricultural development activities, including industrial and construction activities.
NRRP 2007 has “recommended that as far as possible, projects may be set up on wastelands, degraded land or un-irrigated land. Acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural use in project may be kept to the minimum; multi-cropped land may be avoided to the extent possible for such purposes, and acquisition of irrigated land, if unavoidable, may be kept to the minimum.”
The government has also introduced various programmes and schemes to increase agricultural land in the country and for maintaining balance in the different type of land uses.
Among them are the National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed Areas (NWDPRA); Soil Conservation in the Catchments of River Valley Projects and Flood Prone Rivers (RVP &FPR); Reclamation and Development of Alkali and Acid Soils (RADAS); and Watershed Development Project in Shifting Cultivation Areas (WDPSCA). (KNN)