Land Resource Management In INDIA

Land is a finite resource and put to many competing uses. It comprises soils,minerals, water and biota. In India land is a source of livelihood for 60 % of the population through agriculture and related activities. Population growth and the consequent demand for land, water and biological resources has put tremendous

pressure on land.

Agenda 21 recognizes the need to allocate land for sustainable uses and promote the integrated planning and management of land resources. 

The condition of land resources in India, along with policies, programmes and technologies adopted.

Institutional set-up
Land is a subject within the legislative and administrative jurisdiction of the states as per the VIIth Schedule of the Constitution, empowering the states to develop policies and enact laws. 
In India, the 3 Ministries responsible for the conservation and management of land resources are the Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Environment and Forests. 
At the national level, the Department of Land Resources under Ministry of Rural Development is the nodal agency for coordinating different land resource development and management programmes.

Land use
Of India’s reporting area for land use statistics, about 46.6% is under agriculture, 22.6% is forested, and 13. 6 % is not available for cultivation. Roughly 41 million hectares of land are considered totally unfit (snow cover, desert) or not available (urban use, rivers) for vegetation. The per capita 

13 Land 240 

availability of land declined from 0.89 hectare in 1951 to 0.3 hectares in 2001; the 

per capita availability of agricultured land declined from 0.48 hectare in 1951 to 

0.14 hectares in 2001. 

Besides the pressure of human population, there are about 

500 million cattle and other livestock living off the biomass from the land (Bali,

2000).

Land Degradation

The land and soil face many difficulties like deforestation, erosion, flooding, water logging, urbanization and salination. Around 33 percent of the land is going to be wasted at the end of this century. Soil Erosion is more common in the Australia, India, Spain, U.S.A and Africa. The air and water erosion affects around 40 thousand hectares of land in a year. The top soil lost is the maximum. It makes around 20 percent of the total loss. Our country has the largest livestock and it leads to more of grazing. It leads to the soil erosion. The erosion is prevented by the crop rotation, mulching which leads to decrease in the evaporation and increase in the absorption, presence of suitable outlet channels which can carry the water, sowing of certain crops which check the erosion and include the grasses, groundnut, pulses and berseem. 
The planting of tress also checks the erosion. The control on grazing and the terracing of lands which decrease the speed of water also keeps a check on the erosion. The contour bunding has an ability to hold the rain water and control erosion. The burn agriculture along with the slash is quite common in the tribal areas. It occurs in the tropical and subtropical areas of Africa and Asia. The tress is cut and is burnt and the crops are raised on the ash formed. This phenomenon is known as jhuming and it occurs in the jhum forests in the north east India. The process is not useful as the jhuming is done frequently. The water jhuming is done in less than a decade and it destroys the forest and lead to soil erosion. 
Soil erosion affects farming in detrimental ways. Physical damage is the most visible form of soil loss, and most likely to be remedied. Gravity pulls constantly at soil, nudging it down hill, causing soil slips, earth clips, cracks, creep and slumps. Ironically, the most damaging of rainfall is the impact with which water droplets hit the soil. From there on, the flow of water causes sheet-wash, rilling, surface gullying, tunneling and in rivers it scours banks. In dry climates, wind blow is the main cause of erosion. Soil Conservation is a set of methods and procedures which are adopted for prevention of soil being eroded from the earth’s surface or becoming chemically altered by overuse or salinization or acidification. The main methodology of soil conservation are improvement of the choice of vegetative cover, soil erosion prevention, salinity management, to augment the health of beneficial soil organisms and stopping of soil contamination. Soil conservation if of utmost importance for a country like India which is mainly has an agricultural economy. A large part of India’s population depends on the soil for their livelihood and hence soil erosion and the measures of soil conservation taken up to prevent Soil erosion are of key concern for the Indian government.