A consultancy study report on prioritization of rainfed areas in India submitted to National Rainfed Area

Abstract

Rainfed areas currently constitute 55 per cent of the net sown area of the country and are home to two-thirds of livestock and 40 per cent of human population. Even after realizing the full irrigation potential, about 50 per cent of the cultivated area will remain rainfed. The business as usual approach of taking major interventions uniformly across all the regions of the country has not paid much dividend. Therefore, regionally differentiated interventions befitting natural resource endowment, social capital, infrastructure and economic conditions are need of the hour to meet the local challenges and enhance livelihoods. Earlier efforts of characterization of rainfed areas mainly focused on a few bio-physical indicators without giving importance to socio-economic aspects related to livelihoods issues. In order to meet this challenge, the current study was taken up to prioritize the rainfed areas for resource allocation and targeting of interventions based on resource availability, livelihood parameters and potential for development. Realizing the importance of characterization of rainfed areas of the country and prioritization of the districts based on natural resource and livelihood indicators, National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) identified two premier institutes namely Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad and Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute (IASRI), New Delhi to work on two components, viz., natural resources and livelihood status, and integrate the outcome to prioritize the rainfed areas of the country. CRIDA developed a “Natural Resource Index” (NRI) comprising of nine variables, viz., rainfall, frequency of drought, available water content, extent and per cent of degraded and wastelands, irrigation intensity, extent and per cent of rainfed areas and ground water status. Similarly, IASRI constructed an “Integrated Livelihoods Index” (ILI), which is a composite of three sub-indices, viz., socio-economic index, health and sanitation index and infrastructure index. Both NRI and ILI were constructed as a weighted sum of the relevant variables with weights generated from principal component analysis (PCA). The results of NRI derived from PCA generated weights largely agreed with the weights suggested by the subject matter specialists during National Stakeholders Consultation meeting on methodology held at New Delhi. The study considered ‘district’ as a unit as it is the unit of administration. All the districts covered under Census 2001 have been considered for prioritization. Common minimum data set available across the country led to inclusion of 499 districts in the study. These districts account for more than 90% of country’s population and area. The districts that are not part of this study are: districts of Jammu & Kashmir, districts of north-eastern region except Assam, districts of Goa, and Union Territories. Totally urban districts like 2 Prioritization of Rainfed Areas in India Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad were also excluded. Data for newly formed districts were added to ‘original’ district data, wherever a district was bifurcated. Rainfed Areas Prioritization Index (RAPI) was derived by assigning two-thirds weight to natural resource (NR) priority index and one-third weight to livelihood priority index as suggested by subject matter specialists. Accordingly, the top one-third districts (167) based on RAPI score may be considered as high priority rainfed districts for taking up crop and livestock-based interventions. In majority of prioritized districts, natural resources status and livelihoods status are inversely related. In eastern India, NRI is medium to high but ILI is low indicating scope for improving the livelihoods through better access and utilization of natural resources. Based on RAPI, most of the districts having high priority fall in western India and southern peninsula. Therefore, further yield and livelihood gap was examined which was not considered in the RAPI. In order to bridge the gap through investment for harnessing natural resources, of the top one-third districts (167), 50 districts have been identified. The districts identified are mostly in eastern India and deserve developmental initiative on priority basis as there is unexploited potential for development. Rice is a major commodity of food security and eastern India provides many opportunities for enhancing production and productivity of rice. In these districts there is an immediate need of effective enabling mechanism and support services. On the other hand, NRI is low in western India and southern peninsula but ILI is medium to high. These districts have been receiving good investments on NRM for quite some time. However, our study indicates that these districts require continued attention in terms of NRM, particularly in-situ and ex-situ water harvesting, controlling soil loss and land degradation. Therefore, there is a need to come up with new policy guidelines and developmental strategies in relation to natural resources and livelihoods status. There is a considerable scope for land use diversification and crop intensification in areas having high NRI and low or medium ILI. Agricultural development should receive high priority in areas having medium or high NRI irrespective of ILI. This calls for support services in the form of technology, infrastructure, credit, capacity building, forward and backward linkages, etc. Rather than individual components, packaging of the technologies is the need of hour and single window delivery mechanisms need to be explored for sustainable development of prioritized rainfed areas. Lastly, areas having low NRI deserve creation of off-farm employment opportunities with focus on land use diverisification, micro-enterprises and industrialization.