THINGS could not have turned out more badly in the fight
over the fate of the wastelands board. Last fortnight's
cabinet notification lays to rest the uncertainty over
where the new minister for wasteland will sit. The
notification certainly also does another thing: It dug a
grave for the entire wasteland programme in India.
The notification converts the former National
Wasteland Development Board into the National
Afforestation and Eco-development Board and gave it
charge of greening forest lands and responsibility for
ecologically fragile areas like the Western Himalaya,
Aravallis and Western Ghats. The newly founded Department
for Wasteland Development, with Ram Singh at the helm,
will afforest the non-forest wastelands, primarily for
producing fuel and fodder for the people. With work,
money, officials, chairs and tables bifurcated with true
bureaucratic efficiency, the Ministry of Environment and
Forests is going to transfer Rs 26 crore of its Rs 180
crore budget and 34 of its officials to the Ministry of
Rural Development. In sum, it has become another
employment generation programme for ministers and
bureaucrats.
When we wrote in this very column barely two months
ago, we were expectant and enthusiastic that this move
could have turned the sorry state of degraded lands
around. We were enthusiatic because a full department
meant an upgrading for such a crucial issue. And we were
expectant because the Prime Minister's initiative put
the programme directly under his charge, which could have
meant greater coordination between the Centre and the
states and between the revenue and forest departments.
It is our strong belief, borne out of years of
research in this area, that wasteland development needs
a holistic perspective. There is nothing sillier than
perpetuating the artificial, British-determined
boundaries in types of land. For village communities, in
their desperate search for survival, there is nothing as
irrelevant as saying that the degraded land surrounding
their village is divided between two faraway departments,
each with its own rules and inclinations. Degraded land
is degraded land. And, it needs urgent attention that
only the village communities can give. It is equally
ridiculous to tell a Himalayan woman that the fodder that
she needs to feed her animals, which, in turn, gives her
the manure to fertilise her fields, cannot be grown on
forest land as it is so preordained by the demigods in
Delhi or Lucknow. And that an invisible boundary permits
this only on revenue or panchayat land.
The new game plan, on the one hand, will get fences
around forest land to keep people out and, on the other,
will get blocks of eucalyptus plantations and other
similar commercial species on private land. Areas where
private forestry -- Ram Singh's department -- will take
off will be in the plains where more than 90 per cent of
the land is privately owned. In the hills where little
land is privatised -- Kamal Nath's territory -- the
proposed strategy will mean that large areas are fenced
off for regeneration.
Just consider the following: In the Dangs district
of Gujarat, the forest area is 98.5 per cent of the total
geographical area; in Uttarkashi and Uttar Kannara, it is
80-90 per cent. Ranm Singh will have no role to play
here.
Today, degraded forest lands play a major role in
meeting the fuel and fodder needs of people. Of the total
land available for biomass production, only about 36 per
cent is common land. Of this, 5 per cent is panchayat
land -- roughly the same area is available for wildlife
animals -- 6 per cent is revenue land and 25 per cent is
forest land, half of which is degraded according to the
forest department. Not only are common lands other than
forest lands miniscule but 40 per cent of these are
located in just two states -- Gujarat and Rajasthan.
What was been worse in this debate has been the
complete wasteland of ideas. The entire squabble has been
over Kamal Nath's hurt pride and Ram Singh's new turf.
Clearly the former wasteland board needed more than a
push but after 10 years of vacillation and planting dead
trees, the country surely deserved better.
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