Reorienting Land Use Strategies for Socio-economic Development in Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

The land use pattern of any region/country at any point of time is governed by the prevailing physical, economic and institutional framework. The interaction of these parameters keeps the land use system dynamic in the long term, but stable in the short term. In other words, the land use pattern in India keeps evolving as the result of action and interaction of various factors such as physical characteristics (productivity, location, geography, etc) of land, the institutional framework (social, legal, etc) and the availability of resources (water, capital, labor, etc). As the economy is growing, the demand for land for purposes other than agriculture is continuously increasing. Though the numbers are not available, it is believed that land costs are almost doubling every three years in big cities and even rural hinterlands have witnessed a close to 100% hike during the last five years. The economic reforms in the last two decades have left the land sector untouched and there is a growing perception that land policy must be scrutinized for the next level of economic growth. India occupies only 2.4% of world’s geographical area but supports more than 16% of the world population. The grazing area is limited to 0.5% of the world grazing area and yet 18% of the animal population lives in India. The point is further highlighted by the fact that the hot arid Indian desert (Thar) is the most densely populated desert in the world. Therefore, increasing pressure on natural resources is a major challenge confronting policymakers. From the agricultural perspective, soil, water and weather are the most crucial natural resources for sustaining productivity levels and enhancing production to cope with the population pressure. In fact, it is all the more necessary in the case of land and water as they are so intricately related that one without the other loses its agro-productive utility. The productivity of agricultural land is directly linked to water use management. It must be also noted that approximately 56 billion Indians struggle for two meals a day. Indo-Gangetic plains have supported the largest chunk of the Indian population for centuries. The same region is however home to the world’s most dense and destitute population. The natural resources in this region are depleting but optimum development and utilisation of natural resources offers a potentially enormous means of poverty reduction (Srivastava et al 2002). Thus, it is a delicate balancing between the conflicting interests of preserving and maintaining the natural resources while utilising them for development. The people who are causing land degradation and at the same time are the ones most affected by its consequences are the poor and mar ginal farmers, cultivating marginal lands. It is also true that they have none or very limited access to the decision-making process, no political power and most of their actions are not based on greed but on the need to survive.