MillenniumPost
Opinion

Solving the vexatious land issue-A way out

The country is presently having a public dialogue on land. Those who appreciate the potential and relevance of the ‘Make in India’ concept are also aware that for it to take off the land issue needs to be resolved and all stakeholders should emerge satisfied. I am convinced that the vexatious land issue can be resolved decisively, satisfactorily, economically and quickly. With the help of a few committed retired engineer friends, we are trying to push the idea of rain water management (RWM) through. It is not making fast headway because it is yet to be tagged to any urgent/ important mandate like ‘Make in India’ or anything as important as that. The issue being of great import and urgency needs a quick decision.

Nature’s design has been to keep the entire globe supplied with fresh water to support all life forms. The Earth’s oceans occupy three fourth of the earth’s surface and serve as a grand sink. The large sea-surface area enables evaporation of water with the help of available solar energy throughout the year so as to store enough water in the clouds. The clouds are designed by nature as movable overhead tanks. They keep fresh water in ready stock to be distributed by sprinkling whenever and wherever required. Meteorological factors actuate the operations. The earth is the platform for supporting life forms including vegetation and also serves as the receiving trough (like a bucket placed under a tap) where it is supposed to be ultimately used with 100 per cent efficiency. The pore space available in the body of the soil trough, within the top 10 metres of the earth’s crust (known as the disintegrated zone), is adequate to hold the total rain received during any three consecutive years. The reason nature has designed earth as an oversized receiving and storing trough is to permit carryover of the unused stock of water from any one year to another in case meteorological aberrations disturb the annual rhythm. In Nature’s scheme of things, there seems to be no scope for either drought or flood. It also means that if either occurs, it is not due to any basic design/operational deficiency at the supply end but due to some kind of mismanagement on part of man.

Man-made mismanagement comprises: (i) wide deforestation resulting in reduced infiltration into the receiving trough; (ii) reduced evapo-transpiration due to reduced vegetative cover (induction of drought); and (iii) increased run-off resulting from reduced infiltration and reduced evapo-transpiration leading to flooding downstream. Under any circumstance, the primary concern of the designer (Nature) is to keep its clouds always refilled in time so as to be able to supply water on demand dictated by meteorology. Therefore it tries to enhance evaporation from any surface where it finds unused moisture such as wet leaf surfaces, wet field soils as well as inland water bodies, etc.

Therefore under mismanaged situations, soil and surface water storages dry up faster. Rain-fed areas, in case of mismanagement, therefore suffer most from drought. The issue that is of concern at this stage is –what should be the administrative approach to make up the deficiency? Should it be one of confronting nature or going along with the original thinking of the designer, i.e. Nature?
Logic apart, what have we been really doing? Are our irrigation systems (user end activity) going in accordance with the thinking of nature or are they confronting nature? One simple test is water flows down a grade naturally, whereas all our irrigation systems block the flow path of a stream where it is physically convenient to do so and try to send water up the grade to the place of use. It is both expensive as well as inefficient. All our systems are therefore no more efficient than 35 per cent.

Going against nature has other adverse effects as well. The sooner we replace them with a system, which is in sync with natural law, the better it will be. Rain Water Management (RWM) is a friendly technique which allows the providential design to operate intact and serves the cause of intensive cropping more efficiently. At the same time it is much cheaper and affordable.

As far as the technology is concerned, the basic idea is to measure the rainfall and runoff loss and determine appropriate conservation measures so as to retain at least 750mm of rainfall every year. That is, in a nutshell, the end of RWM game. If the runoff is not allowed to waste away but is infiltered into the sub soil, the total annual rainfall can be accommodated locally sub-surface. If we make arrangements by suitably bunding the lands, the runoff may be made to circulate long enough-- for 20 hours-- to ensure entire surplus to be stored. It has already been proved that the task can be accomplished by spending only Rs 8000 per hectare of the benefited area. This is a small fraction of the cost of water storage projects required to store  86 per cent run off  (only 14 per cent of runoff gets into the soil in business as usual situation) for which we need Rs 1244 lakhs per a micro watershed of 500 hectare.

Adoption of an erroneous technique of water resource utilisation, I feel, is responsible for not only a large fiscal loss over time, but also for inflicting on the people of this country a persisting sense of disbelief about the capability of the government to ensure the kind of benefit it promises from various development programmes. The result of this is reflected in public resistance to new irrigation projects, even though a large part of India’s water resources still remains unutilised. There is now a parallel case of seeking public support for natural resource utilisation.

In the late forties, large irrigation projects received public support. At that point of time people did not know the long term consequences of these projects. Now, for valid reasons, they have become apprehensive of the danger of accepting monetary compensation in lieu of land even if it is offered at four times the market value. The reason is that money moves faster and the beneficiary, who is familiar with spending about Rs 100 per day, is overwhelmed by the much larger amount suddenly deposited in his account. He becomes a victim of wrong advice/improper investment and soon starts losing money and feels insecure. The story of suffering of many ill-fated people displaced in the late forties has fortified these apprehensions. The government does not have many examples to demonstrate and assure that their rehabilitation package has improved the quality of life of the affected people. As a result, suspicion and apprehension have grown.

The RWM technique is a sure way of making water available virtually at any place – either where the enterprise comes up or, at the rehabilitation site for the displaced people. It holds the promise of quick implementation. If cropping intensity is raised to 300 per cent, the task of achieving farmers’ cooperation gets accomplished. If such a policy is resorted to, it could dispel public apprehensions, making the task easier for the government for all land related future programmes.

A package consisting of an enriched land asset (through RWM) together with a monthly flow of income could make all stakeholders contented. However, the land to be offered to the affected family needs to be made ready in advance for inspection. While the older member of the family would operate the compensatory farm, the younger ones would be engaged in off farm assignment opportunities arising out of the new enterprises. Now that the Prime Minister has decided on periodic review of progress in project implementation, it would be possible to get a quicker feedback on whether people are finding the package beneficial before embarking on the project per se , thereby avoiding the predicament being faced as in case of, say a project like POSCO.  

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