A POLICY FOR LAND AND WATER
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Patel Memorial Lectures 1980
A POLICY FOR
LAND ANO WATER
B, 8. VOHRA
PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
A POLICY FOR
LAND AND WATER
(Two Lectures Broadcast From All India Radio
Under The Title “A Charter For The Land”)
B. B. VOHRA
Secretary, Department of Petroleum
Ministry of Petroleum, Chemicals and Fertilizers
PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
December 1981 (Agrahayana 1903)
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Introduction
In 1955, All India Radio introduced a programme of
lectures in memory of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Apart from
the great role he played in India’s freedom movement, Sardar
Patel was free India’s first Minister of Information and Broad
casting. An annual feature, the Patel Memorial Lectures are
designed to contribute to the existing knowledge on a given
subject, and to promote awareness of contemporary problems.
They have now become almost a national institution and are
looked upon as among the highly valued intellectual contri
butions to Indian life and thought.
Each year, an eminent person, who has specialised in a
particular branch of knowledge is invited to present through
All India Radio the results of his/her study and experience for
the larger benefit of the' public.
The two lectures inthepresentseriesonthetheme“APolicy
for Land and Water” were delivered by Shri Bal Bir Vohra,
Secretary, (Department of Petroleum) Ministry of Petroleum,
Chemicals and Fertilisers. Born at Lyalpur in 1923, Shri
Vohra had a brilliant educational career. He joined the Indian
Administrative Service in 1948 and was awarded a U. N.
Fellowship in Economic Development in 1954. Shri Vohra has
written a number of seminal papers on various aspects of the
environment and land and water management, which have
contributed significantly to thinking on this subject. He has
also served as a U. N. Consultant for land and water manage
ment. Shri Vohra has since been appointed Chairman of the
National Committee on Environmental Planning.
The two lectures focus attention on the need to pay greater
attention to the management of the country’s vast land resour
ces, which are today not only being underutilised but grossly
misused and wasted.
Part I
A Policy for Land & Water
The relevance of good land management to a country
like ours hardly need any explanation. We have a large
population which is not only growing at an appreciable rate
but is also among the poorest in the world. Nearly half of our
people still live below the line of poverty. Our economy is
also overwhelmingly agricultural in character. Our only
hope of achieving a decent standard of living for our people
lies in making the best possible use of our land resources,
which in the ultimate analysis, are responsible for sustaining
all forms of agricultural, animal and forestry production.
There can be little doubt that our record in this field has
been far from satisfactory. This is apparent not only from
the destitution from which our people suffer, but also from
the visual evidence of the neglect of these resources, which
is available wherever one might go in this.vast.country of
ours. Denuded hillsides, ravines, waterlogged and saline
lands, drought stricken villages, silted tanks and drying wells
Sardar Patel Memorial Lectures, 1980 by Shrl B.B. VOHRA, Secretary
to the Government of India. Department of Petroleum on December
22 and 23, 1980.
Note : These lectures were entitled “A Charter for the Land" at the
time of the broadcast.
2
are to be encountered almost everywhere. Floods ravage areas
year after year, even as the Rajasthan desert maintains its
leeward creep. The expansion of towns and cities continues
to take a heavy toll of good agricultural lands. In certain
coastal areas, particularly Kerala, erosion by the sea is a
major problem. In the North-Eastern parts of the country,
shifting cultivation continues to strip once heavily forested
slopes of all vegetation.
There is, however, little awareness of the seriousness of the
situation which faces us. A surprisingly large number of our
planners, politicians, policy makers and economists still be
lieve that there is nothing seriously wrong with the manner
in which we have managed our land resources all these years.
It is this complacency, born out of a genuine unfamiliarity
■with the subject or what my friend Dr. Sudhir Sen calls
’•resource illiteracy”, which is responsible for the fact that
even 33 years after Independence we are still without a proper
policy for the management of these resources, let alone the
institutions required to implement it. It would be unbe
lievable, were it not true, that there is as of today no agency
or organisation at the Centre, which is specifically charged
with the care and oversight of these resources. In these cir
cumstances, it is not surprising that there is also no proper
system for reporting the damage suffered by these resources
or the extent to which they are being misused or under
utilised. Consequently, the awesome price which the nation
is paying for the neglect of these resources is also never
computed. If this vicious circle of ignorance, complacency
and neglect is to be broken, it is necessary that the exact
nature and scope of the problems with which we are faced
in this field should be properly assessed and understood.
Only then will it be possible to have any meaningful discuss
ion with regard to the manner in which the present state of
affairs can be improved.
'3
Let us, however, first take a broad look at the way in
which our land resources are being utilized. The total area
of the country for which land use statistics are available is
305 million hectares. Of this, 18 million hectares are under
urban and other non-agricultural uses and 21 arc classified
as barren and unculturable, perhaps for certain instrinsic
reasons such as these areas being perpetually snow bound or
rocky in nature. We are, therefore, concerned only with the
remaining 266 million hectares from the point of view of
management. Of these, 17 million hectares are classified as
culturable wastes and as many as 23 as fallows. This makes
a total of 40 million hectares, which though capable of pro
duction by definition are today lying unproductive, apparently
because of the degradation they have suffered.
Of the remaining areas of 226 million hectares 83 million
hectares arc classified as forests and permanent pastures and
143 million hectares as agricultural lands. However, it is a
well known fact that only about 35 million hectares out of
the 83 million hectares described as forests and permanent
pastures are actually under good tree or grass cover and that
the remaining 48 are more or less completely devoid of vege
tation. If these 48 million hectares are added to the 40
which have gone out of production for one reason or the
other, we arrive at a total of 88 million hectares which are
more or less completely unproductive. This represents a
percentage of 33 over our relevant total area of 266 mi'lion
hectares. However, if we exclude the 143 million hectares
of agricultural lands from consideration, this area of 88
million hectares represents as much as 72% of the remaining
area of 123 million hectares of non-agricultufal lands. In
other words, fully one third of our total relevant land area
and nearly three quarters of our total non-agricultural areai
is today lying practically useless.
These figures show how very sick our non-agricultural
4
lands are. However, our agricultural lands are also not in
a completely healthy state. According to information released
by the Ministry of Agriculture recently, as many as 175
million hectares equivalent to 66% of our total relevant area
of 266 million hectares are affected by degradation caused
mainly by serious soil erosion and water logging and salinity
which, incidentally, are the only two major ills that the land
suffers from. Since the 88 million hectares of non agricul
tural lands which are more or less completely unproductive
must necessarily be part of these 175 million hectares, it
follows that the remaining 87 million hectares of sick lands
are under agriculture. This represents a percentage of 61
over the 143 million hectares which arc classified as agricul
tural lands. In other words,- over three fifths of even our
agricultural lands are degraded to a greater or lesser degree.
The actual situation is, however, even more alarming
than what the above statistics reveal, because they do not take
account of two additional factors. The first of these concerns
the vast areas which are revaged by floods. According to the
National Commission on Floods, the area affected by annual
floods stands today at around 40 million hectares as against
25 million hectares about 30 years ago. The second factor
concerns the growing menace of water logging and salinity
in newly irrigated canal command areas. No precise estimates
of such threatened areas are available, but considering our
own experience in this regard as well as the experience of
other countries with extensive canal irrigated areas, it would
not be unreasonable to assume that at least 10 million
hectares out of our total irrigated area of around 40 million
hectares are threatened by water logging and salinity and arc
in urgent need of attention if they arc not to go out of pro
duction in the near future. Even allowing for a great deal
of over-lap between these 50 million hectares and the 175
million hectares already listed as degraded, the total area
5
which needs to be attended to cannot be less than 200 million
hectares out of a total relevant area of 266 million hectares.
This represents a percentage of 75.
lam conscious of the fact that although the figures I
have quoted are all from official source, they may not be
quite accurate, for the simple reason that nobody seems to
have ever asked for accurate reporting in this field, so great
is our indifference to such matters. However, even allowing
for any possible inaccuracies and overlaps, the fact remains
that these figures present a truly frightening picture—a pic
ture which should give pause to even the most optimistic
among us and silence for ever the professional peddlars of
self-induced euphoria who predict a great future for India as
an agricultural power and exporter of foodgrains. To repeat,
around three quarters of our total relevant area is in need of
urgent attention and a third is so sick that it is almost comp
letely unproductive. Category-wise, at least 61% of our
agricultural lands and at least 72% of our non-agricultural
lands are degraded to a greater or lesser degree. No wonder
we arc so desperately short of food, fruits, fibres, fuel-wood,
timber, animal products and indeed everything that the land
produces. No wonder we can barely manage to produce
130 million tonnes of foodgrains from 143 million hectares
of agricultural lands while China produces significantly more
than 300 million tonnes from a mere 112 million hectares. No
wonder destitution and unemployment stalk this unhappy
country. It is high time we realised the state we are in, for
what we arc witnessing is the unchecked erosion—literal as
well as figurative—of our resource base even as the demands
on it from a steadily incressing population and steadily
increasing expectations of a better life are rising rapidly. Our
situation can indeed be compared to that of a leaking boat
into which more and more people keep climbing even as,
unknown to its occupants, the hole in its bottom goes on
increasing in size.
6
That this picture is not over-drawn, will be clear when wc
consider, in some detail, the exact nature of the problems of
land degradation which face us, and the formidable nature of
difficulties which we will encounter in trying to tackle them.
As mentioned earlier, the two major threats to our land
resources are water logging and soil erosion. Each of these
merits a discussion in depth before we consider some of the
lesser problems of land management.
In soils which are not naturally well drained, the pre
sence of excessive surface water results in a rise in the level
of sub-soil water, till it reaches the root zone of crops. As a
result, the fertile top soil—which needs adequate aeration for
its health—begins to lose its productivity and ultimately be
comes totally barren. This process is assisted by the harmful
salts which move upwards in the soil along with the water.
According to the latest available information the areas which
have already gone out of production on account of water
logging and salinity total 13 million hectares. Of these,
perhaps half are situated in estuarine and coastal areas and
have not been productive in recent times. However, at least
6 million hectares comprise lands which were productive till
the other day, so to say, and have been lost to water logging
and salinity on account of man-made situations. The first
and lesser of these situations arises from the impediments
which have been created in the way of natural drainage by
engineering works such as flood control embankments and
road, rail and canal embankments. If, as is often the case,
such embankments do not contain adequate cross-drainage
works, water gets held up against them and causes damage to
the areas submerged. The answer to such situations though
expensive, is fairly easy—it lies in the construction of ade
quate cross-drainage works wherever these are required.
It is the second kind of situation, peculiar to canal irri
gated areas, which is much more alarming. Lands in canal
7
areas are often flat and poorly drained and the application of
irrigation water to them results in water-logging and salinity
over a period of time. This process is hastened by two other
circumstances. Firstly, the application of canal water to crops
is often in excess of their needs, thanks to the absence of
field channels and installations necessary to regulate the flow
of water to individual fields. Secondly, wherever canals
and distributories arc not lined, as is often the case, they
contribute heavily to water-logging through seepage.
Water-logging and salinity in canal irrigated areas is a
global phenomenon and has reached such serious proportions
that according to a recent study commissioned by UNDP
and UNEP, as much irrigated land is going out of production
in the world every year on this account as is being brought
under new irrigation. It is also known that about half the
world's irrigated land has already been damaged to some
degree by water-logging and salinity and that much of the
additional land expected to be irrigated in the future is highly
vulnerable to similar damage. In Pakistan, out of a total of
15 million hectares of irrigated lands as much as 11 million
hectares are already suffering from water-logging and salinity.
Egypt, Syria and Iraq also have similar stories to tell. In our
own country, we have not only lost at least 6 million hectares
to production already but large additional areas are being
affected by rising water tables and salinity year after year
even in the commands of comparatively new projects.
The answer to the problem of water-logging in canal irri
gated areas is not at all easy. It lies in the lining of canals
and distributories, the construction of field channels so that
just as much water may be applied to the soil as is really
necessary and finally the provision of adequate surface and
sub-surface drainage. The lining of canals and distributories
is called for not only to save valuable lands from water-logg
ing but also to save water losses which often amount to as
8
much as 40% of the water released from the reservoir. Field
channelsand drains must be designed and built not on the
basis of individual holdings but of natural drainage units,
namely the commands of irrigation outlets which arc some
times as big as 200 hectares. Water from the primary drains
in each of such units must empty into intermediate diains
which in turn must be connected to major drains with a natu
ral outfall into a river. Such works call for not only a very
great deal of detailed planning and careful execution but also
for huge financial outlays. Experience shows that in most
cases the levelling and reshaping of command areas is also
necessary before scientific water distribution and drainage
systems can be built. However, such works are in turn often
possible only if the consolidation of holdings and redrawing
of field boundaries are also carried out simultaneously. As
can be imagined, such arrangements are extremely difficult,
time-consuming and costly to make. This is why anti-water
logging operations make such little progress and why the
blessings of canal irrigation are turning into a curse over large
areas.
The reclamation of water-logged and saline lands which
have already gone out of production is naturally even more
difficult than the prevention of water-logging. Not only must
drainage be provided to these lands but arrangements must
also be made to leach saline soils and to carry out soil amend
ments and introduce suitable, cultural practices. Here as in
most other situations, prevention is definitely better than
cure.
Even if we give a low priority to the reclamation of
water-logged and saline lands which have already gone out of
production, we must save the 10 million odd hectares of
newly irrigated lands from going out of production. Such a
programme will naturally require a huge outlay-perhaps not
less than Rs. 10,000 per hectare on an average or Rs. 10,000
9
crores for the area we have in mind. It will also require
technical and administrative inputs of a colossal nature. How
ever, we have no option but to mount such an effort and
ensure that it is carried out successfully if we are to save
some of our best lands from the most serious damage.
It is necessary to mention in this connection that we must
count ourselves lucky that individual farmers whose lands
have been ruined by water-logging have not yet started clam
ouring for adequate compensation. The time, however, does
not seem to be far off when greater consciousness on the part
of farmers of their rights —and we have some evidence of this
already - will result in a demand for damages. One shudders
to think of the political and financial implications of such a
demand.
Let us now turn to the other major threat to the land—
the erosion of the fertile top soil. Erosion can be caused either
by water or wind action and is almost invariably the direct
result of the over-exploitation of non-agricultural lands by
way of excessive felling and grazing. The fact that such lands
arc nobody’s private property but belong either to the State
or local communities constitutes one of the major reasons for
their misuse. Once the natural original cover of trees and
grasses on such lands is destroyed, the soil becomes vulner
able to the erosive action of water, particularly on hillsides
and under conditions of heavy rainfall. If the denuded lands
arc fiat and arid, they become vulnerable to the erosive action
of strong winds. Once erosion sets in, the land is caught in
a vicious circle because the loss of its top soil renders it increa
singly less capable of sustaining vegetation just when it needs
it most to save it from further damage. It is estimated that
the area affected by serious erosion by wind is around 50
million hectares while the area affected by serious erosion by
water is around 100 million hectares.
10
The control of wind erosion lies primarily in the restora
tion of vegetal cover to denuded lands by curbing indiscrimi
nate grazing by nomadic herds and the creation of wind
breaks and shelter belts which reduce the velocity of strong
winds and thereby their erosive and desiccating effects. Ex
periments in Rajasthan have shown that excellent pastures
can be developed by merely closing areas to grazing, and that
once such pastures have been established, they can under con
ditions of controlled and rotational grazing, support four
times the number of animals as are being carried by the same
land today. The planting of wind breaks and shelter belts
not only helps to develop such pastures but also to provide
timber and fuel in areas which are practically treeless and
where even the roots of shrubs and trees arc today being dug
up for fuel. These are also the methods by which shifting
sand-dunes can be stabilised and prevented from smothering
vegetation, blocking up roads and railroads and choking irri
gation channels in their vicinity.
The reclamation of the desert through such means would
make it ideally suitable for vastly expanded programmes of
scientific animal husbandry and dairying and make the margi
nal agriculture that is being practiced in such areas today
much less attractive. This would be a most welcome develop
ment indeed, because cultivation in areas subject to erosion
involves the periodic disturbance of the top soil and thus
renders it increasingly susceptible to further damage. A deli
berate policy of diverting land from agriculture to animal hus
bandry, therefore, needs to be followed in desert areas in the
interest of the soil as well as of the people.
The control of wind erosion also carries with it the hope
of ending the aridity of the desert and of finding a permanent
solution to its problems. Studies indicate that one of the
possible reasons why moisture-laden clouds pass over western
Rajasthan without precipitating their burden on it is the fine
11
dust suspended in the air over the desert.
course, the direct result of wind erosion.
This dust is, of
Let us now turn to the erosion of the top soil by water,
which undoubtedly constitutes the most serious threat to our
land resources. This is so because apart from reducing the
fertility of the 100 odd million hectares of land directly affect
ed by it, it has a number of extremely deleterious side-effects.
Thus, it leads to the siltation of reservoirs and tanks, the
choking of estuaries and harbours, the occurrence of floods
and finally to the loss to the sea of a great deal of priceless
sweet water. Each of these matters deserves to be considered
in some detail.
The genesis of water erosion, as of wind erosion lies in
the ever increasing pressure of human and animal populations
on so-called forest and pasture lands in their search for fuel
and fodder. The diversion of forest lands to agriculture is
particularly unfortunate because it involves clear felling and
in situations where slopes are steep and the land is brought
under the plough without being first properly terraced and
bunded, there is great less of top soil. Tn tribal areas, grow
ing population pressures result in an increasing shortening
of the cycle of shifting cultivation and the laying bare of vul
nerable hillsides to the erosive action of rain. The cutting
of hillsides for building mountain roads also contributes to
erosion and land slides. The over-exploitation of forests by
commercial interests is yet another contributory factor.
Unscrupulous forest contractors often cut down more trees
than they arc entitled to. The opening up of hitherto inacces
sible forest areas by new all-weather roads and the easy
availability of heavy duty trucks in recent years have hastened
this process greatly.
It is a sad but undeniable fact that our forest depart
ments have by and large failed to protect our 70 odd million
12
hectares of so-called forestlands against encroachments, un
authorised fellings, and denudation. This is partly due to the
fact that they do not possess adequate legal powers over areas
other than reserved forests, which constitute only about half
the total forest area. In the remaining half, described as pro
tected and unclasscd forests, Forest Departments have very
little say indeed. As far as pasture lands—which constitute
around 12 million hectares are concerned, these usually vest
in village communities and have suffered enormous damage
through encroachments and over-grazing.
It may be mentioned that deforestation, denudation and
resulting soil erosion are phenomena which are not peculiar
to India but also affect many other developing countries where
enough attention is not being paid to [and management.
Satellite photographs show that only 12% of the once lush
island of Java is left with tree cover and that in the Phili
ppines, forest cover is today less than 20% of the country's
land area and not 33% to 50% as is commonly assumed. In
northern Thailand, forests are being decimated at the rate of
5%to 7% a year. In Pakistan although 8 2 million hectares are
classified as forest and range lands, only 2’6 million hectares
are actually wooded. In Nepal, the destruction of forests is
taking place at such a rate that the country is likely to be all
but totally denuded by the end of the century. We should be
particularly concerned with this development because soil
erosion in this neighbouring country has a direct link with
floods in the Ganga basin.
It is impossible to quantify the losses resulting from soil
erosion. This is so because it is not possible to place a price
tag on the fertile top soil, an inch of which it takes Nature
anything from 500 to 1,000 years to build, and which is,
therefore, for all purposes a non-renewable and irreplaceable
resource. Nevertheless, it is possible to get some idea of the
price we arc having to pay for our neglect of this resource.
13
According to an estimate made by Dr. J. S. Kanwar in 1972,
the quantity of top soil displaced by water erosion alone was
6,000 million tonnes a year. It was calculated that this rep
resented a loss in terms of the major nutrients NPK. alone
that would require 5’37 million tonnes of inorganic fertilizers
to replace at a cost of Rs. 700 crores.
It is easy to work out what this loss represents in terms
of current prices of fertilizers. However, the extent and inten
sity of erosion have undoubtedly increased very considerably
during the last 8 years. Current losses must, therefore, be
several times this figure. Our actual losses are even greater if
computed in terms of the agricultural, animal and forestry pro
duction that we arc losing year after year as a result of wind
and water erosion over 150 odd million hectares of land. Such
losses must certainly be of the order of several tens of thou
sands of crores a year, and it is only because they take place
insidiously, and have never been the subject of any proper
study by learned economists that they do not form the topic of
any serious discussion. However, these losses show up unmis
takably in the pitiable condition of our poverty stricken
masses for land degradation, like murder, will out.
The indirect losses caused by water erosion are no less
serious in nature. The premature siltation of our 500,000 odd
tanks and of the 487 reservoirs of our major and medium
irrigation and multi-purpose projects on which the community
has invested over Rs. 10.000 crores during the last three de
cades is a particularly serious matter. Observations show that
the average rate of sedimentation in most reservoirs is 4 to 6
times as high as the rate which was assumed at the time they
were designed and built. The life expectancy of these projects
is. therefore, being reduced significantly by soil erosion in
their catchments. However, what is particularly alarming is
the fact that in most cases, there will be no alternative sites
for dams once the existing ones arc rendered useless. This
14
means that even if we have the money to build fresh projects
—and this is by no means certain -we shall not have the
physical opportunities to do so. What is at slake, therefore,
is the loss of the irreplaceable potential for irrigation, for
electricity and for Hood control -that these storages rep
resent.
The threat to our hydel potential is a particularly
serious matter in the context of the deepening energy
crisis and the growing application of electricity to ground
water development. It is necessary to stress in this connection
that ground water is today responsible for nearly half our total
irrigation in terms of area and much more than half in terms
of irrigation efficiency and productivity.
Another way in which the country pays dearly for soil
erosion is through the losses it suffers as a result of floods,
which occur because a great deal of the soil which is washed
down from water-sheds gets lodged in the beds of rivers and
reduces their carrying capacity. zXccording to the National
Commission on Floods, losses caused by Hoods during the
3 year period from 1976-78 amounted to Rs. 3,180 crores
which works out to an average of over Rs. 1,000 crores per
annum. However, these figures convey no idea of the suffer
ing and misery caused by the loss of lives or of the toll taken
of human and cattle health by the epidemics which invariably
follow in the wake of floods.
The only way to tackle the growing menace of floods is
to control deforestation, denudation and soil erosion in the
water sheds of rivers. Such a task must be undertaken on the
most urgent basis particularly in the case of the Himalayan
rivers, if certain disaster is to be avoided. If this problem is
not tackled in time, it is not difficult to imagine a situation in
which, thanks to increasingly frequent and intense floods, and
the consequent rise in the level of river beds, large portions
15
of the rich flat lands of the Ganga basin may be turned into
undrainable swamps. Perhaps it is already too late to save
the situation because while the denudation and erosion of the
Himalayas is already far advanced and is growing rapidly, it
will be years -even with the best will in the world—before we
will be able to control it effectively. Responsibility for flood
control must, in any case, be removed immediately from the
Irrigation Departments where it rests today and handed over
to organizations which can control denudation and soil eros
ion in the catchments. It is time we realised that the building
of spurs and embankments which incidentally have to be
rebuilt or raised almost every year—is no answer at all to the
problem of floods.
Yet another extremely serious consequence of soil erosion
is the havoc it plays with our water resources. This is so be
cause the run-off of rain water from denuded surfaces is far
greater than from slopes which are well-wooded and wellgrassed. This means that a great deal of the water which
would otherwise have been retained as sub-soil or ground
water is lost to the sea, often after causing a great deal of
damage in the process. Incidentally, this is the reason why
springs and artesian wells dry up wherever extensive denuda
tion takes place. It is impossible to over-estimate the serious
ness of this loss considering that ground water is one of our
most valuable resources. It is also worth mentioning in this
context that fully recharged ground water aquifers play a
most significant part in contributing to river flows during lean
months. Both floods and droughts arc thus in reality two
sides of the same coin of poor land management.
Let us now consider how water erosion can be controlled
—in situations, of course, where there has been no total loss
of the top soil and the point of no-return has not yet been
reached. Fortunately even partially eroded soils are capable
of saving themselves from further damage and of generating a
natural vegetal cover in a comparatively short period of time,
16
provided they are left severely alone and protected against
further depredations by man and beast. This, it may be poin
ted out, is a very big proviso because a proper rest cure for
eroded lands is difficult to arrange for the very reasons that
led to their denudation in the first place. Wherever possible,
such protection must be supplemented by the planting of suit
able varieties of trees and grasses and, if necessary, by engi
neering works such as gully plugs, bunds and terraces to
prevent the formation of ravines. Such secondary treatment
is, however, quite infructuous in the absence of adequate pro
tective measures. It is mainly because we have failed to
provide effective protection to denuded lands that the money
spent so far on afforestation and soil conservation schemes
on non-agricultural lands has shown little results and has been
very largely wasted.
The key to the problem of soil erosion obviously lies in
the effective use of adequate legal and executive powers to pro
vide the necessary protection to the land till it can be restored
to health. Such powers must also be used thereafter to ensure
that the land is exploited strictly within the limits of its pro
ductive capacity and is not allowed to degenerate again.
However, the use of legal and executive powers can be effective
only if local communities realise that the restraints placed
upon them are in their own best interests in the long run.
There is, therefore, a great need to educate the affected popu
lations and win their cooperation in this matter. Il is equally
important that workable solutions are found to the problem
of meeting the genuine needs of local communities in respect
of fuel and fodder during the period that the land needs for its
recuperation.
How much would a total programme for the control of
soil erosion over the 150 odd million hectares affected by it
require by way of financial outlays ? Even if we assume, at
a very conservative estimate, an average cost of no more than
17
Rs. 1,000 per hectare, the total bill for treating all the lands
presently affected would be around Rs. 15,000 crores. Such
an investment though colossal in size would certainly be
justified if it can be carried out in a manner which is techni
cally sound, and is supported by the local communities
concerned, as well as by a stern political and administrative
will. It may be mentioned in this connection that this is
exactly the approach followed by China and South Korea
which are the only two countries in the developing world that
have been eminently successful in tackling their problems of
deforestation, denudation and soil erosion on a wide scale.
In both these countries, very stern executive action has been
taken to ensure effective protection to degraded lands. In
South Korea, the entire operation has been made the responsi
bility of Ministry of the Interior which has not hesitated to
use the police for this purpose. In both countries the results
achieved have been quite remarkable. China has placed 55
million hectares under new forests during the last 30 years
while in South Korea there is now hardly an acre of denuded
land to be seen anywhere.
Apart from the two major ills to which the soil is suscep
tible and which wc have examined in detail, there arc some
other threats to the soil, of which mention needs to be made
though only in passing. The first of these concerns the diver
sion of good agricultural lands to urban uses. Since such
diversions are irreversible and since good agricultural lands
are a precious commodity, steps should be taken to ensure
that wherever possible urban growth takes place only on com
paratively inferior soils. Urban expansion should in any case
be regulated in such a manner that it is economical and not
wasteful in the use of land.
The second threat concerns the possibility of deterioration
of some of our best soils which arc cultivated intensively in
18
situations of perennial irrigation and multi-cropping. Such
deterioration can take place on account of the continued appli
cation of large quantities of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides
and the depiction of elements and other micro-nutrients. The
health and fertility of such over-worked soils needs to be care
fully monitored and maintained through scientific soil testing
at regular intervals and suitable corrective measures.
A third threat concerns erosion by the sea which affects
many parts of our long coast line but has so far drawn atten
tion to itself only in the densely populated areas of Kerala
where the loss of land to the sea is of the order of 2 to 5
metres per annum.
The fourth problem relates to the disfigurement of the
land by activities sveh as brick-making, quarrying and open
cast mining. Such activities should be subjected to appropriate
regulation aimed at minimising the loss of good top soil and
at making the best possible use of depressions, by converting
them, wherever adequate sources of water are available, into
fresh water fisheries.
Part II
A Policy for Land & Water
In my previous lecture I have tried to explain the nature
and extent of the enormous damage which has been already
suffered by our land and soil resources. It has also been
brought out that the situation is not static and that the
threats to the health and the productivity of our land resources
arc of a continuing nature. What is more, these threats will
become increasingly serious and intractable with the passage
of time. The ways in which the further degradation of the
soil can be stopped and the tremendous inputs—financial,
technical and administrative—which will have to go into such
an effort have also been discussed.
We must, however, remember that arresting the further
degradation of the soil is only a part of the problem before
us and that the positive aspects of land management must
also receive due attention. Situated as we are, we have no
option but to make the maximum use of our good lands even
as we try to stop further deterioration of lands which are
Sardar Patel memorial lectures, 1980 by Shri B. B. VOHRA,
Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Petroleum
on December 23, 1980.
20
already degraded or arc threatened with imminent degrada tion We must, therefore, take a look at the present
land management situation in its entirety and determine the
areas and programmes which should be taken up as a matter
of priority in the interests of increased production as well
as the amelioration of sick lands.
It would indeed be necessary to draw up a well consi
dered perspective plan for implementation over an adequate
period of time so that the efforts which we make arc not
disjointed, isolated or fragmentary, but fit into a rational
pattern which takes due account of the pressing demands of a
most difficult and complicated situation. This period of time
should, naturally, be the minimum possible, considering that
we have a lot of leeway to make up and that further damage
to our land resources will continue to take place even as we
are trying to improve the condition of the lands which have
been degraded already and the productivity of those which
are still in good condition. Perhaps 20 years is the utmost
that we allow ourselves for such a purpose, for what we are
engaged in is basically a race against time. We must also
remember that according to the latest projections our popu
lation will have reached the figure of 1000 million by the
year 2000 AD.
It would be useful, in following such an approach, to
consider the management needs of our agricultural lands as
a matter of the highest priority. It has been noticed already
that these lands arc 143 million hectares in extent. However,
at least 87 million hectares are already affected by degrada
tion and only the remaining 56 million hectares would seem
to be free from problems. It would be obviously necessary to
ensure that the productivity of these good lands is maximised
in the shortest possible period of time. Let us sec how we
should go about this task.
21
According to the latest available information, the net
area under irrigation stands at around 40 million hectares of
which approximately 20 million hectares arc irrigated by
canals and tanks and about 20 by tube-wells. Very high
priority must be given to the care of the 20 million hectares
which arc irrigated from surface water sources not only
because huge public investments have been made in them
but also because these lands are particularly susceptible to the
threat of water logging and salinity. All such lands need to
be looked at closely from the point of view of their drainage
needs although only those which are in imminent danger of
water logging—estimated to be 10 million hectares in area—
should be taken up for treatment first. However, the proper
utilisation of irrigation water on all such lands must be
achieved as quickly as possible in order to make the fullest
possible use of the potential they represent. It may be
mentioned in this connection that while yields from our
irrigated areas are on an average only of the order of around
1.7 tonnes of foodgrains per hectare, in other countries,
yields of as much as 4 to 5 tonnes per hectare from irrigat
ed areas are not uncommon. Part of the explanation for this
lies in the fact that the bulk of our canal irrigated areas have
yet to be provided with field channels and that until this is
done, only a very primitive kind of irrigation, which involves
the passage of water from one field to another, is possible.
No wonder that in such circumstances, crops receive more
water than they need, fertilizer use is inhibited, yields are
poor and water logging sets in rapidly. Such irrigation is
in fact suitable only for certain kharif crops like rice and
sugarcane which can tolerate large applications of water and
is completely unfit for most rabi crops. This is why there is
so little double-cropping in our canal irrigated areas.
The conservation of the very valuable irrigation potential
represented by these 20 million hectares also demands that the
COMMUNITY HEV.T l CELL
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Bangalore - 560 001.
22
tanks and reservoirs which feed them should not be allowed
to get silted prematurely. This means that high priority
must also be given in any perspective plan for soil conserva
tion programmes in the catchments of these tanks and reserv
oirs. We must also remember that apart from the 487 major
and medium irrigation schemes which have been completed
already, there are another 415 major and medium irrigation
projects which have been taken up but have yet to be com
pleted. For obvious reasons, the catchments as well as the
command areas of all these schemes also will have to receive
the same kind of priority in attention as those of the projects
which have already been completed in the engineering sense.
Such unfinished projects must of course be also completed in
the shortest possible time in the interests of increased agricul
tural production.
Programmes, aimed at making the quickest and fullest
possible use of existing irrigation projects as well as of the
projects which are in hand, and of saving their reservoirs from
premature siltation will call for enormous outlays and take
several plan periods to implement. It is very necessary that
this fact should be recognized by Irrigation Departments so
that they do not take up any fresh projects however attractive
they might appear to be till this work is finished. There
would, in any case, seem to be no scope whatsoever for
taking up grandiose schemes like the Garland Canal or the
linking-up of rivers in the foreseeable future, if cost-benefit
considerations are to play any part in our planning processes.
High priority in any perspective plan will also have to be
given to the treatment of the water-sheds of rivers which arc
particularly susceptible to floods so that we may be saved, in
as short a time as possible, from the terrible damage which
floods cause to the national economy generally and to
agricultural production in particular. The offending catch
ments must be carefully identified and studied so that those
23
which contribute the most silt are attended to first. Needless
to say, all the catchments which are selected for priority treat
ment, whether to save tanks and reservoirs from premature
siltation or to prevent floods, must be treated in the most
scientific manner possible. The treatment must start from the
top-most reaches of each catchment and proceed downwards
in a systematic manner so that it covers all lands whether
agricultural or non-agricultural. In order to make the best
use of the lands protected for soil conservation, they must be
planted with the most attractive commercially or socially useful
species of trees and grasses after carrying out a careful study
of local soils, slopes and climatic conditions as well as the needs
of local communities. Thus, where trees can be grown, a consc
ious choice should be made whether the plantations should be
merely for protection or also for fire-wood or timber or fruits
or fodder or for a combination of all these. No single piece of
land, however degraded its soil may be, should be left bare
in such catchments because, placed as we are, we can do
with even the coarsest of grasses and shrubs as they represent
bio-mass which can be made available to us free of cost by
the energy of the sun received by lands which would other
wise be completely unproductive.
Let us now turn to the management needs of the 20
million hectares of irrigated lands which are served by ground
water. These lands are undoubtedly the most productive
lands that we have because of the case with which they can be
irrigated in accordance with the exact needs of the crop by
the farmer himself. Very large private investments have gone
into these lands in the shape of the nearly 7 million tube
wells and pumpsets which have been installed in them during
the last 30 years. The interests of agricultural production
demand that these investments must not be endangered by
over pumping of water beyond the recharge capacity of aqui
fers. State Governments must, therefore, carry out scientific
24
hydrological studies to investigate the capacity and recharge
characteristics of ground water aquifers in all such areas and
introduce regulations to ensure that drawals are made only
within permissible limits. They must also ensure that the
power needs of tube-wells and pump sets are adequately met
whether these are in terms of electricity or diesel. In order
to meet these objectives, it will be necessary to set up pro
perly structured and staffed ground water organistaions
wherever these do not exist already.
Another area deserving of high priority is indicated by
the need to achieve the optimum development of the remaining
16 million hectares of good agricultural lands which do not have
access to irrigation today. Some of these lands will undou
btedly receive irrigation from the 415 major and medium
schemes which are pending completion. However, it would
be wise to arrange for the fullest possible development of the
ground water potential of all these lands regardless of whether
they are due to receive surface irrigation or not.
A deliberate and conscious policy decision needs to be
taken that ground water resources should be tapped to the
fullest possible extent wherever these are available because
of the inherent advantages which these resources enjoy as
compared to surface water. It may be mentioned in this con
nection that whereas surface water projects take years to plan
and sometimes decade to complete, ground water can be
tapped in a matter of weeks, if not actually days. In view of
the low cost of individual tube-wells, such installations are
financed through loans which can be easily repaid within very
short periods of time because they result in an almost immedi
ate increase in agricultural production. By contrast, the high
cost & the extraordinarily long gestation period of big surface
water projects involve the State in huge and recurring losses.
Ground water irrigation is far more economical than canal
irrigation because it does not call for any expenditure on
25
storage and transport. It also does not involve the loss, through
submergence of large areas of valuable land under reservoirs
or the disturbance of the ecological balance as is caused
by big irrigation projects. The use of ground water also avoids
the loss of land needed to build canals and distributaries.
Again, ground water does not require any costly and compl
icated systems of water distribution and drainage as canal
systems do. This is so, because private tubewells serve only
small areas of land and because the farmer who is to bear
the cost of pumping, uses just as much water as is really
reqiured for his crop and no more. Again, the owner of tubewcl's irrigated lands can carry out the levelling and shaping
of his fields with his own unaided efToits whereas such works
in canal commands necessarily require large outlays and big
bureaucracies as they have to be taken up on the basis of
large outlet commands. Ground water is also not suscepti
ble to the serious losses by evaporation or seepage which
characterise irrigation projects. Yet again, ground water
development docs not call for the subsidies which the
operation of most irrigation projects demand.
From the farmer’s point of view—and this is what explains
the phenomenal growth in the acreage under ground water—
tubewell irrigation is incomparably superior to surface irriga
tion, because it is entirely under his own control, on the other
hand, in canal irrigated areas the arrival of water and its distri
bution during cropping seasons is at the mercy of huge and
sometimes corrupt bureaucracies. This is why the use of ground
water has a profound psychological effect on the farmer and
makes him self reliant even in matters other than irrigation.
It is necessary to mention in this connection that the un
tapped potential of ground water as estimated today is
enough to irrigate another 20 million hectares. However,
this is undoubtedly an under-estimate because there is great
scope for the augmentation of ground water resources as a
result of the soil conservation measures which have to be
26
taken up in any case in catchment areas. It will perhaps
surprise many people to know that ground water accounts for
more than 90% of all the liquid fresh water available on the
earth at any given moment of time. It is also necessary to
mention that recent investigations have shown that even nonsedimentary areas - and 70% of India is under-laid by nonsedimentary formations - are capable of holding much larger
quantities of ground water than was once supposed. Ground
water irrigation is particularly useful in canal commands
because it helps in lowering water tables and preventing water
logging. The exploitation of ground water resources has
proved to be particularly useful in desert areas where it can
provide much needed water for irrigated pastures and enable
fodder banks to be built up for use in times of drought. The
discovery of ground water in certain parts of the Rajasthan
desert also offers the hope of preventing large scale migration
of cattle in times of drought and, therefore, much loss of
valuable cattle wealth.
In view of all these considerations, the replenishment,
investigation and scientific management of ground water
resources must form the corner stone of all future plans for
irrigation. Ground water represents Nature's own way of
storing and transporting sweet water over long distances at no
cost to the community and without causing any damage to
the land. Wisdom demands that we must make the best
possible use of this wonderful facility.
Let us now consider the problems of management and
productivity associated with the 87 million hectares of agricul
tural lands which are known to be degraded, most probably
as a result of erosion by wind or water. These lands need to
be looked at closely, in order to see which of them deserve to
be kept under permanent agriculture and which are intrinsic
ally fit only for non-agricultural purposes. Those areas which
are marginal in character and have such shallow soils or
27
steep slopes or so little access to water that they should never
have been put under the plough in the first instance should be
identified and placed under permanent vegetation of a suitable
nature. Such a diversion will save these lands from further
erosion and at the same time help them to become more
productive.
Those lands which, as a result of such a scrutiny
are found to be fit for permanent agriculture by virtue of
their deep soils access to water and freedom from serious
environmental hazards should be saved from further damage
and helped in every possible way to develop their potential.
If such lands are threatened by wind erosion or shifting sand
dunes they should be adequately protected by shelter belts
and wind breaks. If, however, they are subject to water
erosion, the entire sub-catchment in which they are situated
must be treated for soil conservation before they are terraced
and bunded along contours. Such lands should be also protected
against erosion by appropriate cultural practices such as con
tour ploughing and the cultivation of crops which give the
maximum cover to the soil. If proper soil and water conser
vation works are undertaken in the sub-catchments concerned
and small tanks built as part of such a programme, it
may be possible to give many such areas access to surface irri
gation. Ground water should also of course be tapped
wherever it is available.
Although it is difficult to hazard a guess in the absence
of reliable information, it is very likely that lands with good
agricultural potential will not constitute more than 50% of the
87 million hectares of degraded agricultural lands. We may,
therefore, assume that while around 43 million hectares may
be reverted to non-agricultural use, around 44 million hectares
may be developed as good agricultural lands. Such an appro
ach, based on the concept of scientific land use, should reduce
the total area under cultivation from 143 million hectares to
28
around 100 million hectares and increase the area under nonagricultural uses from 123 million hectares to around 166
million hectares. Such a major change in the land use
pattern should however cause no concern, for it will
result in an increase rather than a decrease in the agricultural
potential of the country. It needs to be mentioned in this
connection that if, as seems likely, almost all these 100
million hectares can ultimately have access to irrigation, they
should, under proper management, be able to yield upwards
of300 million tonnes of foodgrains per year—a quantity
which will be sufficient to maintain a population of 1000
million at higher nutritional levels than we can boast of today.
It should not be forgotten that under proper conditions of
irrigation and soil management, good agricultural lands in a
climate like ours should be able to yield at least two crops a
year so that even with 100 million hectares under cultivation,
thegross cropped area would be at least 200 million hectares.
By contrast, even though we have 143 million hectares under
agriculture today, our gross cropped area is only 172 million
hectares.
The next item in our order of priorities according to this
approach will be the care of our non-agricultural lands, which
will now stand increased to 166 million hectares as noticed. Of
these, 35 million hectares arc already under good forest
management. It is, therefore, only the management of the
remaining 131 million hectares that needs consideration.
However, a great deal of this area will be automatically
covered by the priority programmes which will need to be
undertaken in the catchments of our 500,000 odd tanks, our
900 odd existing and projected reservoirs and the denuded
watersheds of our floodable rivers. Large areas will also be
covered while treating the catchments which contain the
presently degraded lands which deserve to be developed into
good agricultural lands. The areas which will remain to be
dealt with arc, therefore, likely-to be only a small part of
29
these 131 million hectares. Even though such, remaining areas
will merit a lower priority than the others we have discussed,
they must, nevertheless be protected and treated within the
20 year period of the perspective plan.
There can be little doubt that the implementation of a
plan of this nature for the optimum management of our total
land resources would yield very rich dividends and change the
face of the country. Such a plan would probably require the
investments of upwards of Rs. 50,000 crores at current prices,
mostly in the form of wages to labour required for works
connected with land shaping, land levelling, terracing, bun
ding, afforestation, soil conservation, and the construction of
irrigation channels and drains. Apart from creating a very
substantial employment potential both for the skilled and
unskilled, a programme of this kind would result in a very
significant increase in the productivity of the land, agricultu
ral as well as non-agricultural, and put millions of our rural
poor on their feet on a permanent basis by engaging them
in activities based on multi-cropping, animal husbandry, dairy
ing, horticulture, pisciculture and forestry. 'I he revitalisation
of the rural economy would also yield other unexpected
benefits. The present drift to the towns-a drift which is
threatening to turn them into unmanageable slums—would
hopefully abate. Nutritional standards would improve and
reduce the country’s health bill. With greater employment
and prosperity, social tensions born out of poverty and
glaring disparities in standards of living wou’d lessen and,
therefore, also problems of law and order. Greater produc
tivity from the soil would also help solve our energy problems
by increasing the availability of firewood and other forms of
bio-mass as well as by prolonging the life of hydel projects.
Assuming for a moment that the requisite political will
for formulating and executing such an ambitious, and farreaching programme will be forthcoming, let us see what arc
30
the changes which wou’d need to be made in our present
attitudes, policies and organizational arrangements in order
to achieve success in such a stupendous venture.
The very first thing to be done is to correctly understand
and appreciate the nature of the resource we are dealing with.
We must no longer take the soil for granted as something
which has been there from the beginning of time and will
continue to serve us for all times to come, without requiring
any attention on our part. Contrary to popular belief, the
soil is not an inert substance, but a fragile and almost living
organism of unrivalled complexity. It will surprise many to
know that fertile soil teems with life and that a tea spoon
ful of it may contain billions of living organisms—the micro
fauna and the micro-flora which are responsible for the fixa
tion of atmospheric nitrogen and the breaking down of orga
nic as well as inorganic materials into forms suitable for assi
milation by plants and, therefore, also by animals and human
beings. The soil is our legacy from the past and must be
bequeathed to posterity in as intact and healthy a state as
possible. We must indeed look upon ourselves merely as trus
tees, on behalf of generations yet to come, of this most basic
of all natural resources and not permit it to be damaged in
any way. This means that the interests of the soil must be
given paramount importance in all activities relating to the
land.
It is particularly important that this consideration should
guide our irrigation policies. Since for all productive purposes,
the soil is useless in the absence of water and vice versa, the
problems of land and water management constitute a single
indivisible whole. However, we must look at these problems
only from the point of view of the land because while the land
is a continuing and non-renewable resource, water is gifted
to us afresh every year by a bountiful Nature. It also needs to
be remembered that while land resources can and do suffer
31
heavy damage at the hands of water, the reverse is not possi
ble. Therefore, there is and can be no such thing as water
management per se. Indeed, the only purpose which the
management of water can have is to subserve the interests of
the land.
Looked at from this point of view most surface irrigation
projects, as we have seen already, leave a great deal to be
desired. A proper evaluation of such projects should be based
not only on the costs of the main engineering structures, but
also on the additional costs required to be incurred on the pro
tection of their reservoirs and land treatment and land develop
ment in their command areas. The benefits conferred by such
projects should similarly be computed after taking into account
the damage they may have already caused to the land by water
logging and salinity. If such an analysis was to be made, it is
certain that States would stop falling over each other in
trying to secure more irrigation projects and might even be
persuaded to give up some of the 415 ongoing projects, on
which much progress has not been made. Such a development
would be most welcome indeed because it would release much
needed funds for land amelioration and ground water develo
pment. It would also hopefully put an end to the intermina
ble inter-State disputes over river waters and cure Irrigation
Departments of their almost pathological preoccupation with
big projects.
One of the reasons why Irrigation Departments have
become almost compulsive builders of dams and latterly,
(because dam sites are becoming increasingly scarce) the drea
mers of Garland canals, water grids and other similar fantasies,
is the fear that they would find themselves out of work when
existing projects get completed. This is why new projects are
conceived years before existing schemes are anywhere near
completion and the pipeline of new schemes is always kept
full. However, such fears are completely unfounded if we take
32
into account the formidable size and scope of the engineering
works which need to be carried out in existing command areas
in order to achieve their full productive potential. Irrigation
Departments have also, in their anxiety to “sell” new pro
jects often under-estimated their costs and over-estimated their
benefits. Some of their concepts are in fact quite misleading.
To illustrate, the “cultural command area” quoted in project
reports is often far bigger than the area which can be actually
irrigated and is, therefore, of no practical significance. Simi
larly, Irrigation Departments include in their figures of “po
tential created" areas which can be theoretically served by an
outlet regardless of whether or not there are any channels
beyond the outlet to actually irrigate the land. Yet again,
areas which may have received water only once arc included
in the figures of potential realised, regardless of the needs of
the crops irrigated. Such attitudes betray a gross indifference
to the interests of increased productivity from the land and
little appreciation of what the true role of irrigation depart
ments ought to be. There is, accordingly, a great need to
reorient the working of these Departments and persuade them
that irrigation as understood by them is not an end in itself
but only a means to an end.
Mention must also be made in this connection of the
extreme reluctance of Irrigation Departments to touch any thing
which is not big in size. This is why small irrigation projects are
left by them even to be handled by District authorities who arc
often technically not properly equipped for the job, and why
even the work cf building field channels for distribution beyond
the outlet has not been attended to by Irrigation Depa
rtments. It is this lofty attitude towards small works which also
explains why it was left to the Agriculture Ministry at the
cetnre to take up the development of ground water. For
tubewells cost only a few thousand rupees each and are,
therefore, fit to be classified only as “minor projects” in the
jargon used by Irrigation Departments. And Irrigation
33
Departments of course must not handle anything smaller than
“major and medium projects”. Irrigation Departments have
thus shown themselves to be indifferent not only to the needs
of the soil but also to a most useful source of water merely
because its exploitation docs no* involve the construction of
large projects. For them indeed only “Big is Beautiful”.
Whatever justification there might have been 30 years
ago for our preoccupation with huge dams and canal
systems has since disappeared with the knowledge that we
possess today regarding the existence of ground water in most
parts of the country and the way it can get replenished
free of cost to the community as a by-product of the measures
which have to be taken in any case to prevent further soil
erosion. Such justification has also disappeared as a result
of the knowledge that we possess today regarding the
enormously high hidden costs attached to such projects.
If the health and productivity of our total soil resources is to
be optimised we must take conscious decisions today whether
available funds should be spent on the amelioration of
degraded lands and the development of ground water or on
costly new irrigation projects. The various alternatives for
investment must be carefully considered before deci
ding as to which of them offers the highest economic returns
in the shortest period of time. In order that such exercises
may be carried out, it would be necessary to place all funds
for these purposes under one major budget head for Land 1
Management.
The reorientation of Forest Departments is also called for
if they are to play the role expected of them in the days ahead.
These departments have developed a certain aloofness in
their approach to the people and feel at home only in the
reserved forests over which they have absolute sway. They
have also, by and large, been friendly towards financially and
politically powerful contractors responsible for illegal fellings.
34
At the same time they have not shown sufficient concern over
the increasing denudation of forest lands. If the gigantic task
of reclothing some 131 million hectares of bare lands is to be
accomplished, it must be approached in a spirit of humility
and foresters must learn to work side by side with members
of other related disciplines in the common service of the soil.
Another area to which attention needs to be given is the
collection of reliable information regarding the use to which
various kinds of lands arc being put at present and the type of
soils they possess. Such data is absolutely necessary if our
land resources arc to be used for the purposes for which they
are ideally suited by virtue of their soils. This is a task which
calls for the stepping up of soil survey activities and if neces
sary the use of time-saving remote sensing techniques.
In order that project areas, whether in catchments or
commands are developed quickly and effectively it would be
necessary to set up suitable multi-disciplinary area develop
ment authorities. It would also be necessary to ensure that
such authorities are not hampered in their work by the lack
of adequate legal and executive powers. These authorities,
must, therefore, be vested with suitable summary powers in the
interests of the land so that its improvement and where neces
sary its physical reshaping may take place as quickly as
possible. It would also be worth considering whether long
delayed land reforms should not be similarly carried out in a
summary fashion in order to release the energies of the people
in the interests of increased agricultural production.
In most of the priority areas which we have discussed,
land management programmes will necessarily have to be
undertaken by the Government. However, it would be useful
to allow private initiative and the profit motive to play a
role in the other degraded areas. To illustrate large lands
particularly in the Rajasthan desert could be identified for
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development on commercial lines by joint stock companies on
suitable terms. It is necessary to mention in this connection
that there is a great scope for the cultivation on such inferior
soils of certain newly discovered “hydrocarbon plants” which
can yield substitutes for crude oil.
The programmes we have outlined are so challenging in
nature that Governments should welcome any assistance that
voluntaiy groups and agencies can provide for their imple
mentation. The mobilisation of students in particular would
be most useful for large scale soil conservation and afforestation
programmes. There is also a great scope for voluntary agencies
to keep the entire land management scene under constant
watch and see that governmental efforts do not flag. Such
agencies could also play a most useful role in educating the
public in matters relating to the soil and fighting “resource
illiteracy”. The work of such agencies could perhaps be
greatly facilitated by an adequately endowed private founda
tion dedicated exclusively to the service of the soil.
If we mean business, the prevalent vacuum at the Centre
where there is no agency or organisation specifically charged
with responsibility for the care and management of our land
resources must be filled at the earliest possible moment.
It would be most appropriate to set up such an agency in the
form of a suitably empowered Central Land Commission
as has been recommended recently by the Committee on
the Environment. Such a Commission must be vested with
authority over all activities relevent to land management. The
creation of a National Land Development Bank would also seem
to be necessary to finance various land improvement projects
on a long-term basis, and to introduce some much needed
discipline into expenditure in this field.
Consistent with our new approach to the soil, it would be
desirable to redesignate the present Ministry of Irrigation as
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the Ministry of Land Management and to transfer to it all
agencies relevant to this subject. The proposed Central
Land Commission would naturally form a part of this
Ministry. Once the Centre has given lead in these matters,
the States may also be expected to make somewhat similar
arrangements.
I would like to stress, before I conclude, that although
the tasks I have outlined are most formidable in nature, they
are not impossible of accomplishment. One must derive
strength at this juncture from the thought that equally diffi
cult tasks in the sphere of politics and administration faced us
at the time of Independence. The fact that these tasks were
accomplished successfully and in record time and order was
created out of chaos was largely due to the unequalled
qualities
of leadership, organisation. courage and
determination displayed by the great son of India,
after whom these lectures have been named. It is perhaps
not too much to hope that similar qualities will be forth
coming today to create order out of the physical and eco
nomic chaos which threatens to overwhelm us as a result of
the unchecked degradation of our land resources. We have
indeed no choice but to meet the challenge that this situation
represents, if we have any intentions of surviving as a selfrespecting nation.
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