Dr Sanat Kaul and Dr Davendra Gupta
Jairam Ramesh’s recent statement, “They(forests) not only face the existential threat from encroachment… but they also face what is becoming perhaps the single biggest threat to Indian forests, which I call the development threat”. He has also stated that 40% of the country’s total 70 million hectares of forests is open degraded forests. None of our government economists or planners has ever made a serious attempt to look into the factors responsible for such a high percentage of degraded forests. This can possibly be explained by their undue obsession with macro planning and modeling and little regard for geographical and spatial planning?
None of India’s five year plans ever gave serious consideration to the need for spatial planning except giving some lip service. Clearly the rural urban divide is unsustainable with the kind of development model we have adopted. This is so because 70% of our 1.2 billion populations cannot eke out a living out of rural economy which largely consists of small, uneconomic and unviable agricultural holdings. This may be contrasted with the decline of the share of agriculture in the GDP from nearly two third at independence to a low of around 15% in 2010 while the decline in rural population showed a correspondingly low decline during the corresponding period, being from about 80-85% in 1947 to only 70% in 2010. The burgeoning rural population is finding it difficult to eke a living out of the limited fertile land which is becoming increasingly expensive and out of reach. Consequently, this rural population has little option but to drift towards urban areas to look for jobs and eventually settle down often in unauthorized slums, mostly on encroached but affordable land and housing prices. For all those who are unable to emulate such encroachers resort to encroach land in rural areas. In such a situation, forest land becomes an easy prey. The phenomenon of landlessness and marginal holdings is becoming more and more pronounced.
What went wrong? While our investment in agriculture has generally remained relatively small, it is also true that we did not plan for a smooth transfer of rural populations to urban areas by creating suitable urban agglomerates with transit accommodation for a smooth movement from rural to urban areas. While part of the problem of relocation may largely be related to the democratic path that the country has justifiably adopted, it should also be admitted that this could have been achieved through a concerted spatial plan, with focus on employment combined with the availability of a minimal, affordable transit accommodation. There is an urgent need for government to locate lands which are neither fit/required for agriculture and forests and at the same time not difficult to acquire. There is nearly 64 million hectares of degraded, saline, arid and desert lands. While land is a state subject, migration of population is not. Government of India should help set up Industrial Parks and EPZs in such lands in consultation with the concerned state governments. This will also involve minimum housing and welfare provision. In this case we could seek lessons from China which created such zones and allowed a massive transfer of populations from rural to urban areas and that too in a short span of time to become the factory of the world. Admittedly such a course is not easy to emulate for a country like India, but what can however be done is to try the China model on a pilot basis.
Modern economies have a large component of employment engaged in industry and service sectors, and modern agriculture can hardly sustain perhaps no more than 10 to 12% of the population. This percentage is indeed much lower in countries like US, France, UK, Germany or Japan. For India to emerge as a modern economy and also to retain its forest cover there is a dire and emergent need to initiate vigorous measures steps towards spatial planning, with massive but controlled urbanization. The instrument for such an exercise would require care so that the sensibilities of civil society are not hurt. This could perhaps be achieved through incentives and clearly not by force and coercion. This may also contribute to the revival of our forests which are so essential for country’s ecological health.
The SEZ policy adopted by the Government does not have any special characteristics and, therefore, does not meet the criteria of Spatial Planning. NREGA is yet another scheme which has hardly any significant economic rationale except for providing a dole to rural poor against ill conceived rural developmental schemes which may not leave any lasting impact on the society. In fact there is hardly any evidence to demonstrate that the huge expenditure on NREGA has succeeded in creating assets commensurate with the expenditure on the programme. Indeed the annual expenditure on NAREGA at about Rs.60,000 cores could easily have built up urban infrastructure to sustain the living of many millions of migrant rural population.
Dr Sanat Kaul is a commentator and Prof. Davendra Gupta is with NCAER
Jairam Ramesh’s recent statement, “They(forests) not only face the existential threat from encroachment… but they also face what is becoming perhaps the single biggest threat to Indian forests, which I call the development threat”. He has also stated that 40% of the country’s total 70 million hectares of forests is open degraded forests. None of our government economists or planners has ever made a serious attempt to look into the factors responsible for such a high percentage of degraded forests. This can possibly be explained by their undue obsession with macro planning and modeling and little regard for geographical and spatial planning?
None of India’s five year plans ever gave serious consideration to the need for spatial planning except giving some lip service. Clearly the rural urban divide is unsustainable with the kind of development model we have adopted. This is so because 70% of our 1.2 billion populations cannot eke out a living out of rural economy which largely consists of small, uneconomic and unviable agricultural holdings. This may be contrasted with the decline of the share of agriculture in the GDP from nearly two third at independence to a low of around 15% in 2010 while the decline in rural population showed a correspondingly low decline during the corresponding period, being from about 80-85% in 1947 to only 70% in 2010. The burgeoning rural population is finding it difficult to eke a living out of the limited fertile land which is becoming increasingly expensive and out of reach. Consequently, this rural population has little option but to drift towards urban areas to look for jobs and eventually settle down often in unauthorized slums, mostly on encroached but affordable land and housing prices. For all those who are unable to emulate such encroachers resort to encroach land in rural areas. In such a situation, forest land becomes an easy prey. The phenomenon of landlessness and marginal holdings is becoming more and more pronounced.
What went wrong? While our investment in agriculture has generally remained relatively small, it is also true that we did not plan for a smooth transfer of rural populations to urban areas by creating suitable urban agglomerates with transit accommodation for a smooth movement from rural to urban areas. While part of the problem of relocation may largely be related to the democratic path that the country has justifiably adopted, it should also be admitted that this could have been achieved through a concerted spatial plan, with focus on employment combined with the availability of a minimal, affordable transit accommodation. There is an urgent need for government to locate lands which are neither fit/required for agriculture and forests and at the same time not difficult to acquire. There is nearly 64 million hectares of degraded, saline, arid and desert lands. While land is a state subject, migration of population is not. Government of India should help set up Industrial Parks and EPZs in such lands in consultation with the concerned state governments. This will also involve minimum housing and welfare provision. In this case we could seek lessons from China which created such zones and allowed a massive transfer of populations from rural to urban areas and that too in a short span of time to become the factory of the world. Admittedly such a course is not easy to emulate for a country like India, but what can however be done is to try the China model on a pilot basis.
Modern economies have a large component of employment engaged in industry and service sectors, and modern agriculture can hardly sustain perhaps no more than 10 to 12% of the population. This percentage is indeed much lower in countries like US, France, UK, Germany or Japan. For India to emerge as a modern economy and also to retain its forest cover there is a dire and emergent need to initiate vigorous measures steps towards spatial planning, with massive but controlled urbanization. The instrument for such an exercise would require care so that the sensibilities of civil society are not hurt. This could perhaps be achieved through incentives and clearly not by force and coercion. This may also contribute to the revival of our forests which are so essential for country’s ecological health.
The SEZ policy adopted by the Government does not have any special characteristics and, therefore, does not meet the criteria of Spatial Planning. NREGA is yet another scheme which has hardly any significant economic rationale except for providing a dole to rural poor against ill conceived rural developmental schemes which may not leave any lasting impact on the society. In fact there is hardly any evidence to demonstrate that the huge expenditure on NREGA has succeeded in creating assets commensurate with the expenditure on the programme. Indeed the annual expenditure on NAREGA at about Rs.60,000 cores could easily have built up urban infrastructure to sustain the living of many millions of migrant rural population.
Dr Sanat Kaul is a commentator and Prof. Davendra Gupta is with NCAER
No comments:
Post a Comment