The Gist of Kurukshetra: May + June 2013

Poverty in India
Strategy to Develop Degraded Land
Land Acqusition in India Need for a Paradigm Shift
Global Hunger Index, 2012
Panel on Climate Change

LAND USE AND AGRARAIN RELATIONS

Land is a finite resource and there is conflicting and competing demands on it. For 80% of the world, agriculture land is the primary source of life and livelihood. India holds 2.4% of the world’s geographical area (328.73 mha) but supports 17.5% of the world’s population. India is home to 18% of the cattle population of the world while owning a mere 0.5% of the total grazing area. Of the total 328 mha (total geographical area}, land- use statistics is available for approximately 305 mha (93%) of the total land. 228 million ha (69%) of its geographical area falls within dry land that encompasses arid, semi-arid, dry and sub-humid land as per Thornthewaite classification.

India is blessed with a wide range of soil pattern, each particular to the locale. The alluvial soil (78 mha) that covers the great Indo- Gangetic Plains, the valleys of the rivers Narmada and Tapti {Madhya Pradesh), the Cauvery Basin (Tamil Nadu) supports cereals, oil, pulses, potato and sugar cane. The Black Cotton soil (51.8 mha) found in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh supports cereals, cotton, citrus fruits, pulses, oil seeds and vegetables. The red soil of South India and Madhya Pradesh, West-Bengal and Bihar supports rice, millets, tobacco and vegetables. The laterite soil (12.6 mha) and desert soil (37 mha) are not found suitable for agriculture.

Water is a resource precious and scarce in India. The variability of precipitation spatially and in quantity can be inferred by the fact that rainfall has been recorded as low as 100 mm in West Rajasthan and 9000mm in Meghalaya in North Eastern India. India receives 4000 cubic kilometre of precipitation in Gist of

KURUKSHETRA

the country in its 35 meteorological sub-divisions. Of this amount, only 50% is put to benefit due to topographical and other constraints. The fact that water is crucial to agriculture in a country that has 68% of its net cultivated area as rain-fed, can hardly be exaggerated. Of the total cultivated area of 142 mha, 97 mha is rainfed. The full irrigation potential of the country has been revised to 139.5 mha out of which 58.5 mha is watered by major and minor irrigation schemes, 15 mha by minor irrigation schemes and 40 mha by groundwater exploitation. India’s irrigation potential increased from 22.6 mha (1951) to 90 mha (1995-96) but water usage efficiency is a meagre 30-40%. That is why more than 50% of the total cultivated area is still rainfed. The state of soil and water that mainly determine land and its utility in agriculture is of prime importance to maintain sustainable development. We need to define and examine land use pattern with an emphasis on a viable land use policy taking the above factors into consideration.

Land degradation indicates temporary or permanent long-term decline in ecosystem function and productive capacity. It may refer to the destruction or deterioration in health of terrestrial ecosystems, thus affecting the associated biodiversity, natural ecological processes and ecosystem resilience. It also considers the reduction or loss of biological/economic productivity and complexity of croplands, pasture, woodland, forest, etc.

LAND MANAGEMENT CAN IMPROVE RURAL ECONOMY

Land degradation is increasing in severity and extent in many parts of the world, with more than 20% of all cultivated areas, 30% of forests and 10% of grasslands undergoing degradation (Bai et al., 2008). Millions of hectares of land per year are being degraded in all climatic regions. It is estimated that 2.6 billion people are affected by land degradation and desertification in more than a hundred countries, influencing over 33% of the earth’s land surface (Adams and Eswaran, 2000). This is a global development and environmental issue highlighted at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on Biodiversity, the Kyoto protocol on global climate change and the millennium development goal (UNCED, 1992; UNEP, 2008).

The decline in land quality caused by human activities has been a major global issue since the 20th century and will remain high on the international agenda in the 21st century (Eswaran et al., 2001). The immediate causes of land degradation are inappropriate land use that leads to degradation of soil, water and vegetative cover and loss of both soil and vegetative biological diversity, affecting ecosystem structure and functions (Snel and Bot, 2003). Degraded lands are more susceptible to the adverse effects of climatic change such as increased temperature and more severe droughts.

Land degradation encompasses the whole environment but includes individual factors concerning soils, water resources (surface, ground), forests (woodlands), grasslands (rangelands), croplands (rain fed, irrigated) and biodiversity (animals, vegetative cover, soil) (FAO, 2005). On the other hand the NRC (1994) stressed that land degradation is complex and involves the interaction of changes in the physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil and vegetation. The complexity of land degradation means its definition differs from area to area, depending on the subject to be emphasized.

POVERTY IN INDIA

Poverty is one of the main problems which have attracted attention of sociologists and economists. It indicates a condition in which a person fails to maintain a living standard adequate for his physical and mental efficienty.

According to 2010 data from the United Nations Development Programme, an estimated 37.2% of Indians live below the country’s national poverty line. A recent report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) states that 8 Indian states have more poor than 26 poorest African nations combined which totals to more than 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.

According to a new UN Millennium Development Goals Report, as many as 320 million people in India and China are expected to come out of extreme poverty in the next four years, while India’s poverty rate is projected to drop to 22% in 2015. The report also indicates that in Southern Asia, however, only India, where the poverty rate is projected to fall from 51% in 1990 to about 22% in 2015, is on track to cut poverty half by the 2015 target date. The latest UNICEF data shows that one in three malnourished children worldwide are found in India. 42 percent of children under five were underweight. It also showed that a total of 58 percent of children under five surveyed were stunted. The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report ranked India 45th, amongst leading countries with hunger situation. It also places India amongst the three countries where the GHI between 1996 and 2011 went up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries studied, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Uganda, Zimabwe and Malawi, succeded in improving hunger condition.

Classification of Drylands

Dryland ecosystems are mainly categorised into four subtypes according to aridity index and annual rainfall levels into hyperarid, arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas..

World Drylands

Dryland ecosystems occupy over 41 per cent of the earth’s land surface. Desertification affects 70 per cent of the world drylands, amounting to 3.6 billion ha or one-fourth of worlds land surface (IFAD, 1995). Asia possesses the largest land area affected by desertification, 71 per cent of which is moderately to severely degraded. In Africa two-thirds of which is desert or drylands. 73 per cent of agricultural drylands are moderately to severely degraded (IFAD, 1995). Africa is under greatest desertification threat, with a rate of disappearance of forest cover of 3.5 to 5 million ha per year bearing down on both surface and ground water resources and with half the contents farmland suffering from soil degradation and erosion.

Causes of Dryland Formation

Limited rainfall, poor soil quality, fragile environments are the main factor behind dryland formation. There is always water scarcity in drylands. The dryness of drylands is due to negative balance between mean annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration rates. Besides, limited rainfall, the soils are of poor quality, low in organic matter, hence less fertile. Harsh climates are another important issue which limits crop diversification in drylands.

What makes the drylands a difficult environment is not only less rainfall, but also its erratic distribution. Inter-annual rainfall can vary from 20-100 per cent and periodic draughts are common (Zurayk and Haider, 2002).

Problems of Drylands

Water scarcity due to limited rainfall, low soil fertility, mostly deep sandy soil with poor water holding capacity, shallow and rocky soils with low organic matter content. Fragile environments with unpredictable floods and droughts are other factors limiting drylands to become productive ecosystems. Lack of technologies limitation of resources and biotic pressures contribute further in conversion of drylands into deserts.

Strategy to Develop Degraded Land

India has world’s 2% of geographical area and 1.5% of forest and pasture lands to support 18% of world’s population and 15% of livestock population. The increasing human and animal population has been instrumental in the reduction in the availability of land over the decades. While the per capita availability of land has declined from 0.89 hectare in 1951 to 0.37 hectare in 1991 and is projected to decline to 0.20 hectare in 2035, per capita agricultural land has declined from 0.48 hectare to 0.16 hectare and likely to decline to 0.08 hectare in respective years.

Extent of Land Degradation

Agencies that have so far estimated land degradation include National Commission on Agriculture [1976], Society for Promotion of Wasteland Developments [1984], National Remote Sensing Agencies [1985], Ministry of Agriculture [1985], National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning [1985 &2005]. The estimates on the extent of land degradation in India vary widely from 63.9 million hectares to 187.0 million hectares due to different approaches, methodologies, defining degraded soils, adopting various criteria for delineation, among others. However, one cannot underestimate the challenging nature and extent of land degradation in India. The National Bureau of Soil Survey &Land Use Planning [NBSS&LUP] of the ICAR, Nagpur in 2005 has reported that out of 328.60 million hectares of geographical area in India Net Cultivated Area is about 141 million hectares [42.9%] of which irrigated area is about 57 million hectares [40.4%] and about 84 million hectares [59.6%] are rainfed. Area of around 146.82 million hectares [44.7%] out of 328.60 million hectares issuffering from various kinds of land degradation. In absence of comprehensive and periodic scientific surveys, the figures reported by NBSS&LUP based on studies and several estimates [2005] for various land degradation have been considered as logically concluded and are being used for various purposes.

Land degradation is caused by several factors viz. water and wind erosion, water logging, salinity/alkalinity, soil acidity, among others. India has been experiencing a very high degree of land degradation as 44.7% of its geographical area is classified as degraded. Of this 93.68 million hectares [63.8%] are affected by water erosion, 16.03 million hectares [10.9%] by soil acidity, 14.30 million hectares [9.7%] by water logging, 9.48 million hectares [6.5%] by wind erosion, 5.94 million hectares [4.1%] by salinity/alkalinity and 7.38 million hectares [5.0%] by complex problems.

Across regions, all six regions had very high percentage of geographical area as degraded ranging from as high as 56.3% for Central region to 35.4% for Northern region and even 29.5% for Delhi and Union Territories. Among States, 11 States had extremely high percentage of geographical area degraded above mean value of 44.7% ranging from 52.0% to 89.2% and other 15 States too had significantly high percentage of geographical area degraded varying from 25.4% to 43.9%. In particular Mizoram [89.2%] Himachal [75.0%] Nagaland [60.0%] Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh combined [59.1%] were States with very severe intensity of degradation.

Policy and Programs

Acknowledging the acute problem of land degradation, the Government, in its efforts to sustain ecological environment, agricultural productivity and production, has initiated from time to time several policies and programs to prevent land degradation on one hand and take remedial measures to improve the quality of degraded land on the other.

Land Acqusition in India Need for a Paradigm Shift

Land is the base for economic development and poverty alleviation of a country. In recent years, land acquisition for private sector projects and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects like Singur, Nandigram, Yamuna Expressway, POSCO, etc created a lot of noise. Few lakhs crores rupees of investment is hanging in balance in the country from both domestic and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) sources because of failure of government to provide land for the projects and also failure of the land-market to provide sufficient land for development. Is land acquisition process in India seriously flawed? Is The Right to Fair Compensation Resettlement Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Bill 2012 (RFCRRTLA Bill 2012) solution to this problem? Are land institutions of India not market friendly in the post 1991 economic reform era? These questions, which provide the basis for this paper, are examined through field observation and field experience of the authors.

Doctrine of Eminent Domain

The power of the sovereign state to acquire or expropriate private property for public use/purpose is driven from doctrine of Eminent Domain. The origin of the term “Eminent Domain” can be traced to the legal treatise written by the Dutch Jurist Hugo Grotius in 1625 and described as follows:

“The property of subjects is under the eminent domain of the state, so that the state or he who acts for it may use and even alienate and destroy such property, not only in the case of extreme necessity, in which even private persons have a right over the property of others but for ends of public utility, to which ends those who founded civil society must be supposed to have intended that private end should give way. But it is to be added that when this done the state in bound to make good the loss to those who lose their property”.

Almost all sovereign states in the world have law for land acquisition or expropriation. Pakistan and Bangladesh are using the same Land Acquisition Act 1894 (LA Act 1894). Even through all sovereign state are acquiring or expropriating private properties, why land acquisition becomes a hindrance for economic development in India? The fundamental conceptual difference is defining the purpose of land acquisition: public use Vs public purpose. Most of the western countries acquire land for public use like roads, public safety, health, etc and not for the project in which private profit motive is involved even though project has public purpose. On the other hand in UK common law system, land is acquired for public purpose, which is followed throughout all Commonwealth Nations including India.

In Indian Jurisprudence also, when LA Act 1894 was enacted public purpose included in the definition was roads, canals and social purpose of state-run schools and hospitals. By an amendment in 1933, railway companies were included in public purpose. But the amendments introduced in 1984 in the LA Act 1894 by amending section of the original act to insert the words “or for a Company” after “any public purpose”. This opened the floodgates to acquisition of land by the state for private and public sector companies and again this is embellished in the proposed bill. If we put ban on land acquisition for private projects and PPP project with present land system in India, we strongly believe, the economic development of India will be seriously affected because of inherent problem in our land institutions.

Land System of India

The problem of land acquisition in India can be better appreciated by understanding the land system of India. -Modern day land system of India has its base from the land revenue system introduced by Akbar’s revenues minister Todar Mal. The salient features of Todar Mal’s systems were measurement of land, classification of land and fixation of rates (Appu 1996). After the decline of Mughal dynasty, East India Company and the British Raj were established extractive land institutions on the Todar Mal principle called Zamindhari system, Mahalwari system and Raiyatwari system to extract maximum land revenue from peasants, which was the major source of revenue. In the Zamindari area, British had not hold elaborate administrative arrangement and lowest functionary level was sub-divisional level and no proper land records maintained either by British administration or by Zamindars. Only land record maintained was land record created- after each survey and settlement operation and again by revisional settlement. Because of this reason, elsewhere Zamindari area does not have proper land records and weak administration. In Mahalwari areas, the land revenues were fixed for each or group of villages in which one family or person who was responsible to collect and pay land revenue.

The Raiyatwari system covered the erstwhile Madras (except North Madras) and Bombay Presidencies and part of the central provinces and Barer. The Raiyatwari System was based on the assessment of land revenue on sight fields or holdings, surveyed, numbered and marked out on the ground (Appu 1996). Because of elaborate arrangement for revenue collection and administrative step created during British Raj, these areas of India is having better land records than rest of India even today. Another wisdom of British was creation of primitive land institutions in excluded and partially excluded areas to separate tribal and others deprived people of these areas with plain and Hindu population by perpetuating divide and rule policy. This primitive land institutions created by British was responsible for creation of Scheduled V and VI areas and poverty and deprivation of these regions.

During the first four five year plan periods, India introduced radical land reform on socialism land reform model to increase agricultural production and to provide social justice without any role for market forces. During this land reform period, there was no respect for private property rights and no land institutions was created for allocation land resources for industrialisation and urbanisation through market forces. Till date, land system of India is suited for subsistence agriculture using manual labour and does not have major provision for industrialisation, urbanisation and mining activities. By introducing Zaminidari abolition law and ceiling law on agriculture land and also on urban land into the India’s land system, Indian land holding become too small and restriction on transfer and lease, which further reduced the size of holding. In the name of distribution of government land and redistribution of surplus land, we distributed waste land, barren land and dry land for agriculture which could have been kept as construction land. This led to non-availability of large plots of land in thousands of acres for industrialisation and urbanisation.

Wastedland Development Initiatives a Review

The burgeoning population growth of India coupled with rapid urban development has led to an increasing demand on the country’s land resources. An indication of this burden on the natural resources is a simple comparison between India’s share in total world land area and in the total world population. While the former is a meagre 2 per cent of the world geographical area, the latter constitutes 16 per cent of world’s population. Land resources provide livelihood to two-thirds of India’s population. The increasing pressure on land, relentless exploitation of this valuable resource for agricultural and allied, housing, industrial and manufacturing activities has made the productive farm lands less productive, leading to its constant degradation.

The total geographical area of the country is around 329 million hectares out of which only 264 million hectares (80 percent) are fit for vegetation.

While 142 million hectares are covered under all types of crops, 67 million hectares of land are under forest cover and 68.35 million hectare area of land is lying as wastelands in India. The Government of India (Gol) defines wastelands as the degraded land which is currently under-utilised and can be brought under vegetative cover, with reasonable effort by resorting to effective and appropriate water and soil management. It is estimated that approximately half of the wastelands in India which are not covered under forests of any kind can be made productive if treated properly. It is the unprotected and unpreserved non-forestlands, which are subjected to constant degradation. The tremendously increasing biotic pressure on the land resources, in the last six decades, have promoted deforestation and done irreversible damage to the soil and environment. Land degradation is not only impacting the livelihoods of the land-dependent communities but also disrupting the ecosystem as a whole. Keeping this in view the government created the Department of Wasteland Development (presently renamed as Department of Land Resources) in July 1992 under the Ministry of Rural Development to restore ecological imbalance through development of degraded non-forest wastelands.

Status of Wasteland in India

The status of wastelands in India between 1986-2000 and 2003 is highlighted. During 1986-2000, 6.38 lakh square KMs of land was categorised as total wasteland. This fell by 2.71 per cent by 2003. As can be seen from the Table, there were 5.52 lakh square KMs of land which required treatment to become productive. While wastelands under the category of sands (either in the coastal region or inland), shifting cultivation, degraded notified forestland witnessed a sharp fall, the wastelands in the category of mining and industrial and steep sloping areas increased.

Government Intervention

In 1985, the government created the National Wasteland Development Board (NWDB) under the Ministry of Forests and Environment with a view to tackle the problem of degradation of lands, restoration of ecology and to meet the growing demands of fuel wood and fodder at the national level. In 1992, the NWDB was reconstituted and placed under the Ministry of Rural Development, where emphasis was laid on treating wastelands in non-forest areas with active involvement of the community. The programmes designed and implemented by this Board aimed at improving productivity of waste and degraded lands.