Land Use Issues in Selected Disadvantaged Districts of Eastern India

Abstract

Status of current land use and development vis-a-vis available resources in 58 disadvantaged districts (of 150) in three different agro-ecological regions (AER) namely 11, 12 and 13 of eastern India were analyzed. Expectedly fragmentation of agriculture land holdings and declining per capita land availability emerged as major constraints. The analysis also indicated that development of water resource(s) is the most critical factor in AER 11 and 12 where protectionist forest laws appeared to have detrimental effect on irrigation development as evident from empirical negative relationship between irrigation development and forest area. It is argued that developmental plans and land use strategies in AER–11, 12 must be aimed at irrigation development and formulating sustainable non-timber forest produce (NTFP) utilization. Forest lands near villages need to be used for short, middle and long term plans to provide NTFP as a means of livelihood. Based on experimental results it is argued that there exists potential to grow legume crops using residual soil moisture after rainfed rice. AER 13 has very insignificant forest area and well developed irrigation but faces heavy population pressure. Cultivated area in this AER exceeds 74% and hence improving water use efficiency appears to be the emergent option for enhanced productivity. Other land uses such as industrial development are urgently required in AER 13 to relieve population pressure. We argue for revision of land use policies especially tenancy and share cropping and advocate inventory of natural resources with an agro-ecological approach.