NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT DIVISION

Question	Answer
Q.1 What is Shifting Cultivation and its extent in the country?.	Shifting cultivation (Jhum cultivation) is a practice of burning off natural vegetation, planting cultivated crops until soil fertility is exhausted, abandoning the site, moving (shifting) to new site ard returning to an earlier abandoned area that has re-grown the natural plant cover, and beginning the cycle again. It is estimated that 22.78 lakh ha. is affected by the problem of shifting cultivation in the country. 19.91 lakh. ha. is located in North Eastern region, which is about 84% of the total problem area.
Q.2. What is the land degradation scenario in the country?	All India Soil and Land Survey has carried out Rapid Reconnaissance Survey (RR) of 132.6 million ha. area in the country, out of which 34.8 million ha. is regarded as the priority area .This Priority Area includes all kinds of degraded lands which require urgent attention for its sustained productivity and production.
Q.3 What are the efforts being made by the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation to develop land degradation in the country?	The Department of Agriculture and Cooperation is implementing various land based programmes, namely (i) Soil Conservation for Enhancing Productivity of Degraded Land in the Catchments of River Valley Projects and Flood Prone Rivers (RVP & FPR). (ii) Watershed Development Project in Shifting Cultivation Areas in North Eastern Region (WDPSCA). (iii) Reclamation of Alkali Soils (RAS). for the development of degraded lands in the country. The scheme RVP / FPR and RAS have been subsumed under Macro Management Mode of Agriculture.

Q.4 Where or in which states the programmes of controlling land degradation are being implemented?

The states where land based programmes are being implemented are:

· RVP/FPR- In all 28 states of India

· WDPSCA-Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura

· RAS- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh.

Q.5 How much degraded lands have been treated so far under various schemes of the Ministry?

An area of 58.74, 22.52 and 6.1 lakh ha. have been treated under RVP/FPR, WDPSCA and RAS scheme, respectively, upto 2003-04.

Q.6 What is the role of NGOs in implementation of various land based programmes and procedures for allotment of funds to them?

All land-based programmes namely RVP/FPR, WDPSCA and RAS are being implemented through the state Govts. The funds under these schemes are directly released to the state Govts. There is no provision to release funds to NGOs from Govt. of India (GOI)