Prioritization of rainfed areas in India based on natural resource endowments

Abstract

The green revolution era in India had largely bypassed the rainfed agriculture. In order to achieve overall development of agriculture, it is essential to bridge the yield gaps, enhance profitability, minimize risk and improve the livelihoods of millions of people dependent on rainfed agriculture. Therefore, regionally differentiated interventions befitting to the natural resource endowment are need of the hour to meet the current challenges. Further, the resources available for meeting such demands are naturally scarce. Therefore it is important to prioritize the rainfed areas and identify the possible interventions for formulating developmental programmes for correcting the plight in prioritized areas. Previous studies with this aim largely focused on variables like rainfall, irrigation etc. The present study made an attempt to prioritize the rainfed areas including variables like drought proneness and degraded and waste lands, water holding capacity of soil, ground water utilization status as well. For this purpose, district which is the lowest level administrative unit for which reasonable statistical data are available for planning and evaluation is considered as unit of study. A composite index, namely, Natural Resources Index (NRI) was developed by combining various facets of natural resource availability. Based on NRI score, the districts were ranked such that districts with low score (weak resource base) get high priority for resource conservation and upliftment. Status of natural resources (NRI) is relatively low in western, central and southern part of the country extending from Haryana to Tamil Nadu with exception of west coast region of Karnataka and Kerala. On the other hand, the NRI is relatively high in eastern parts of India particularly in West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The information on various facets as summarised in the form of indicators serves as guiding tool for identifying appropriate interventions.