WASTELANDS
AND THEIR
MANAGTEMENT
Wasteland is defined as
“degraded land which can be
brought under
vegetative cover with reasonable effort, and which
is currently under
utilized and land which is deteriorating for
lack of appropriate
water and soil management or on account of
natural causes.
Wastelands can result from inherent/imposed
disabilities such as
by location, environment, chemical and
physical properties
of the soil or financial or management
constraints”.
Classification
of Wastelands
Confronted by various estimates by different agencies
including data thrown
up by latest technological tools like
Remote Sensing, it
become evident that a precise definition of
wastelands of various
categories is required. Therefore, a
technical Task force
Group was constituted by planning
Commission and
National Wasteland Development Board
(NWDB) to arrive at
precise definition of categories. The
classification system
developed by the Technical Task Force
Group and
subsequently slightly modified into 13 categories of
wastelands are as
follows:
1. Gullied
and /or Ravinous land
2. Land
with or without scrub
3. Waterlogged
and marshy land
4. Land
affected by salinity/alkalinity-Coastal or inland
5. Shifting
cultivation area
6. Underutilized
/ degraded notified forest land
7. Degraded
pastures/grazing land
8. Degraded
land under plantation crops
9. Sands-Desertic/
coastal
10. Mining/
industrial wastelands
11. Barren
rocky/ stony waste/sheet rock area
12. Steep
sloping area
13. Snow
covered and/ or glacial area
Need for development of wastelands
India is the seventh largest and the second
most populous
country in the world
with unique physical landscape has resulted
in different types of
land which are subjected to different types
of land which are
subjected to different types of utilization. Due
to increasing
pressure of population, there is an excessive
demand of more land
both for agricultural and non-agricultural
use. This has
resulted in uncontrolled exploitation of land
resources resulting
in vast stretches of wastelands such as
degraded land, soil
salinity, waterlogging, desertification, soil
erosion etc., and
also led to decrease in per capita availability of
cultivable land
besides ecological imbalances. Keeping this in
view, the then Prime
Minister of India said, “Continuing
deforestation has
brought us to face all the major ecological and
socio-economic
crises. The trend must be halted. Hence, he
proposed to set up a
National Wasteland Development Board
with the objective of
bringing 5 million ha of land every year
under fuel wood and
fodder plantations. This has resulted in the
formation of NWDB in
1985.
Distribution of Wastelands
India
The total wastelands area in districts (584)
in India is
estimated at
6.38518.31 Km
2
accounting for 20.17% of the
geographical area
(Table 10.1). The very high percentage of area
under wasteland in
Jammu an Kashimr (64.55%), Himachal
Pradesh (56.87%) are
due to snow cover and degraded forest;
Nagaland(50.69%),
Assam (25.52%), Manipur (58%)
,Meghalaya (44.16),
Mizoram (19.31%) are due to shifting
cultivation; Sikkim
(50.30%) is due to degraded forest and in
Rajasthan (30.87%)
die to sandy area. Among all the states
Kerala has a minimum
2.73% and Jammu and Kashmir has a
maximum 64.55% of
area under wastelands. The category-wise
distribution of
wastelands shows that highest percentage (6.13%)
belongs to the
category land “with or without scrub” followed
by “under utilized
forestland” (4.44%) (Table 10.2). The
former is mainly
distributed in the southern states of India
whereas the later is
distributed throughout the country.
Andhra Pradesh
The total wastelands area in the Andhra
Pradesh state is
estimated at 51750.19
Km
2
accounting for 18.81% of the
geographical area
(Table 10.3). The very high percentage of
wastelands area
(38.76%) is in Chittoor district closely followed
by Nellore (37.61%),
while the lowest is in Hyderabad (0.0%)
belongs category wise
distribution of lands shows that highest
percentage (8.08%)
belongs to “degraded notified forest land”
followed by “land with or without scrub” (7.36%)
(Table10.4).
Regeneration
of wastelands
Regeneration of
wastelands involves the following aspects:
• Pasture
development for fodder supply and erosion control
• Tree
plantation for fuel and timber purpose
• Social
forestry for labour employment
• Silve-pastroal
programme for fodder, fuel, timber
purposes
• Agri-horticulture
system for income generation
• Medicinal
and Aromatic plants for revenue generation
• Grasslands
and fish farming in low lying areas
State wise waste lands of India
S.No
State Wasteland
area
(Km2)
% of
geographical
area
1 Andhra Pradesh
51750.19 18.18
2 Arunachal Pradesh
18326.25 21.88
3 Assam 20019.17
25.52
4 Bihar 20997.55
12.08
5 Goa 613.27 16.57
6 Gujarat 43021.28
21.95
7 Haryana 3733.98 8.45
8 Himachal Pradesh
31659.00 56.87
9 Jammu & Kashmir
65444.24 64.55
10 Karnataka 20839.28
10.87
11 Kerala 1448.18
3.73
12 Madhya Pradesh
69713.75 15.72
13 Maharashtra
53489.08 17.38
14 Manipur 12948.62
58.00
15 Meghalaya 9904.38
44.16
16 Mizoram 4071.68
19.31
17 Nagaland 8404.10
50.69
18 Orissa 21341.71
13.71
19 Punjab 2228.40
4.42
20 Rajasthan
105639.11 30.87
21 Sikkim 3569.58
50.30
22 Tripura 1276.03
12.17
23 Tamil Nadu
23013.90 17.70
24 Uttar Pradesh
38772.80 13.17
25 West Bengal
5718.48 6.44
26 Union Territory
574.30 5.23
TOTAL
638518.31 20.17
S.No Category
Wasteland
Area (Km
1 Gullied and /or
Ravinous land 20553.35 0.65
2 Land with or
without scrub 194014.29 6.13
Category
wise wastelands of India
2
)
% of geographical
Area covered
3 Waterlogged and
marshy land 16568.45 0.52
4 Land affected by
salinity /alkalinity
coastal/inland
20477.38 0.65
5 Shifting
cultivation area 35142.20 1.11
6 Underutilized/
degraded notified forest land 140652.31 4.44
7 Degraded pastures/grazing
land 25978.91 0.82
8 Degraded land under
plantations 5828.09 0.18
9 Sands- Desertic/
coastal 50021.65 1.58
10 Mining/ industrial
wastelands 1252.13 0.04
11 Barren rocky/stony
waste/ sheet rock area 64584.77 2.04
12 Steep sloping area
7656.29 0.24
13 Snow covered and /
or glacial area 55788.49 1.76
TOTAL
638518.31 20.17
Districtwise wastelands of Andhra Pradesh
S.No State
Wasteland area
(Km2)
% of geographical
area
1 Adilabad 2455.61
15.23
2 Aanantapur 3233.45
16.90
3 Chittoor 5872.71
38.76
4 Cuddapah 4897.59
29.93
5 East Godavari
1449.75 13.41
6 Guntur 1676.36
14.72
7 Hyderabad 0.00 0.00
8 Karimnagar 1469.29
12.43
9 Khamman 1746.50
10.90
10 Krishna 921.21
10.56
11 Kurnool 3879.14
21.97
12 Mahaboobnagar 2496.12
13.54
13 Medak 1137.60
11.73
14 Nalgonda 1729.17
12.14
15 Nellore 4918.18
37.61
16 Nizamabad 1487.45
18.70
17 Prakasam 3783.05
21.46
18 Rangareddy 1461.13
19.50
19 Srikakulam 1102.41
18.89
20 Vishakapatnam
3151.38 28.84
21 Vizianagarma
1348.92 20.63
22 Warangal 1493.79
11.63
23 West Godavari
339.38 4.38
TOTAL
51750.19 18.81
Table
10.4. Categorywise wastelands of Andhra Pradesh
S.No
Category Waste
land
area
(Km
1 Gullied and /or
Ravinous land
2 Land with or
without
scrub
3 Waterlogged and
marshy land
4 Land affected by
salinity / alkalinity
coastal/inland
2
)
% of
geographical
Area
covered
692.68 0.251
20256.64 7.365
1035.02 0.376
603.26 0.219
5 Shifting
cultivation area 13.80 0.005
6 Underutilized /
degraded notified
forest
land
7 Degraded pastures/
grazing land
8 Degraded land under
plantations
22237.78 8.084
709.29 0.257
52.91 0.019
9 Sands- Desertic/
coastal 464.70 0.168
10 Mining/ industrial
wastelands
98.88 0.035
11 Barren rocky/
stony
waste/ sheet rock
area
5196.27 1.889
12 Steep sloping area
388.96 0.141
13 Snow covered and /
or
glacial area
0.00 0.000
TOTAL
51750.19 18.81
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