Cultivable land declining, but situation not alarming: Govt

Cultivable land in the country is decreasing by 0.03 million hectares every year but the situation is not alarming, government said in Rajya Sabha today.
"The average cultivable land is reducing by 0.03 million hectares per year. But land productivity has increased slowly. It is not an alarming situation," Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjiv Baliyan said during Question Hour, adding that the net sown area has remained almost the same.
Replying to supplementaries, the Minister said this can be checked by increasing crop density from 138 per cent to 200 per cent, with focus on improving irrigation facilities.
He said the quality of seeds was a major problem and crop output can be increased by deploying technology in agriculture sector and irrigation facilities.

"The biggest problem is irrigation as only 45 per cent land is irrigated in the country," he said.
Admitting that India is far behind countries like Israel which has deployed drip irrigation facilities to get maximum yield out of every drop of water, he said states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat deploy drip irrigation facilities.

He, however, said the Prime Minister's Krishi Sinchai Yojna is a scheme that can help improve crop yield.
To a question on the break-up of cultivable and fallow land, Baliyan said, "Out of a total of 328 million hectare of total land, 181.95 million hectares is cultivable land, which is 60 per cent of total land.

"The current fallow land is 15.25 million hectares and another 11 million fallow land, which is not cultivated for last five years, a total of 26 million hectares can be made cultivable by improving irrigation facilities."
To another supplementary, he said in 2007 when the National Policy for Agriculture was made, states were advised against converting land for non-irrigation purposes.
Earlier in a written reply, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said "as per report on Land Use statistics for 2012-13 (latest available), total land under cultivation/ cultivable land in the country has marginally declined from 182.01 million hectares in 2010-11 to 181.96 million hectares in 2011-12 and further to 181.95 million hectares in 2012-13."

He also said "the average decrease in the cultivable land in the country during the above period has been 0.03 million hectares per year.