Farming in dryland areas is a gamble with the monsoon. Out of the total crop area in the country approximating to 190.91 million hectare, net irrigated area is only 58.54 million hectare, while gross irrigated area is about 79.51 million hectare.
According to recent official farm statistics, the area irrigated in more than one season is only 20.97 million hectare and the area sown more than once is 49.59 million hectare. The figures show the untapped potential for India agriculture.
With the climate change factor inducing regional weather variability, the problems of dryland farmers have become more acute.
Dryland areas are spread across all states in the country. However, the government through its schemes has planned to develop 12,03, 863 sq km dryland area in the country? 7,45,914 sq km in 16 states under the the Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP) and 4,57,949 square km in seven states under the Desert Development Programme (DDP).
DPAP is being implemented in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, covering 972 blocks in 185 districts.
Since the inception of the scheme in 1995-96 till January 31, 2008 about 27,439 projects covering an area of 13.7195 million hectare have been sanctioned and Rs 2,739.84 crore was released.
Under the funding pattern the state governments bear 25% of the total investment. Since April 2000, an uniform cost norm of Rs 6,000 per hectare has been introduced.
Against the budgeted provision of Rs 370 crore for DPAP in 2007-08, Rs 285.26 crore was released till January 31, 2008. Keeping the huge on-going liability in view, no new projects were sanctioned in the year. However during 2007-08 about 121 projects were completed.
The DDP being implemented in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka and Rajasthan covering an area 4,57,949 sq km in 235 blocks in 40 districts. The scheme includes hot arid non-sandy areas, hot arid sandy areas and cold arid areas.
The Centre bears 75% of the cost of the project and funds are released directly district rural development agencies (DRDAs) or zilla parishads.
Since 1995-96 till January 2008, about 15,746 projects covering an area of 7.873 million hectare was sanctioned and Rs 2,060.17 crore was released by the Centre.
Against a budgeted provision of Rs 260 crore for DDP in 2007-08, Rs 222.18 crore was sanctioned, but no new projects was approved as the on-going projects were yet to be completed.
The implementation of the government’s two major schemes for dryland areas show that many sanctioned projects are yet to be completed and have overshot the timeframe. Mid-term evaluations conducted by independent agencies show some success stories in pocket areas, but more needs to be done to improve the lot of dryland farmers.
Indebtedness of dryland farmers have increased leading to cases of suicides. Recognising the situation the government has recently come out with a Rs 71,680 crore debt waiver scheme for farmers across the country. But the farmers in dryland areas have little to benefit as the scheme has limited the beneficiaries to one to two hectare holding.
Resource poor farmers in dryland areas have unproductive landholdings of larger size and their loan size is much larger than Rs 20,000 as estimated by the government. In fact the loan waiver scheme has made no special provision for dryland areas.
However, the dryland farmers can benefit from waiver of investment loans on livestock and poultry, if attempts are made to target the resource poor farmers in these areas.
