20% Of Geographical Area Classified As Wasteland

Nearly 20 per cent of the country's total geographical area falls under various categories of wasteland.

The latest official estimates place wastelands at 63.85 million hectares, or 20.17 per cent of the total area. Hilly states have the maximum degraded lands.

This was revealed in the "Wastelands Atlas of India" released by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee yesterday. The atlas, the first of its kind, has been prepared by the newly-created department of land resources under the rural development ministry in collaboration with the National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad.

According to rural development minister Sunderlal Patwa, the atlas will aid the planned development of waste and degraded lands. The land resources department has already initiated steps in this direction.

 

These include the formulation of a national policy for the management (rather than mere use) of the country's land resources with focus on dynamic conservation and sustainable use, ensuring equitable access to the benefits of policy interventions.

The atlas, which will be updated periodically, contains maps on 1:50,000 scale for different categories of wastelands at village level. Micro-watershed boundaries have also been incorporated in the maps.

The state-wise distribution of degraded land indicates that Jammu and Kashmir has the maximum area, at 64.55 per cent, under wastelands, followed by Himachal Pradesh's 56.87 per cent. Kerala has the minimum, only 3.73 per cent, wasteland.

The hilly states have a relatively large proportion of degraded lands for different reasons. While in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, it is due to snow cover and degraded forests, in Nagaland (50.69 per cent), Assam (25.52 per cent), Manipur (58 per cent), Meghalaya (44.16 per cent) and Mizoram (19.3 per cent) it is due to shifting cultivation. Sikkim has 50.3 per cent of its area as wasteland due to degraded forests, while Rajasthan has 30.87 per cent wastelands, mostly sandy areas.

The atlas has classified wastelands into 13 categories. These include gullies or ravenous land, land with or without scrub, waterlogged and marshy land, land affected by coastal or inland salinity, alkalinity, shifting cultivation areas, under-utilised, degraded notified forest land, degraded pastures, grazing land etc.