The states of Haryana, Punjab, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar. Tamil Nadu and the Union territories of Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindive islands (Lakshadweep), Puducherry and Delhi cultivate more than 45 per cent of their reporting area.
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In some of the states like Haryana and Punjab, which lie in the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains of India, the net area sown is as high as 80 percent of the reporting area; whereas in the states of West Bengal and Maharashtra and the Union Territory of Pondicherry, the net area sown is between 60 and 70 per cent of the corresponding reporting area. Maharashtra has the highest net area sown in the country.
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The states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Bihar account for more than three-fourths of the country’s net area sown.
The gross cropped area is the highest in Uttar Pradesh and is followed by that in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Gujarat, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana, Kerala, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland. The percentage of the areas sown more than once of the net area sown is greater than the all-India average of 18.6 per cent in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar.
In India, food grains occupy a predominant position in most of the states, accounting for more than 21 3 of the gross cropped area. In fact, the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and Nagaland have more than 80% of the gross cropped area under food grains.
In the states of Kerala and Gujarat, less than 50% of the gross cropped area is devoted to food grains. Food grains account for more than 70% of the gross irrigated area in all states, except Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab. In Gujarat, more than 50% of the total irrigated area is under non- food grain crops.
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The available agricultural land in the country is already being put to some agricultural use and in each region a certain pattern of land utilisation has already been evolved. Keeping in view the increasing demand for various agricultural, forestry and livestock products for internal consumption and exports, it is very necessary that each piece of land is put to its best use.
Further, as the various development programmes, such as soil conservation, the spread of irrigation facilities and the adoption of improved agricultural practices, are introducing an element of dynamism in the land-use and cropping patterns, it would be expedient to adopt a planned approach to land utilisation with the following objectives:
(i) The development of all arable land for agriculture or its restoration to agriculture where necessary, keeping in view the equisite balance among farming, pastures and forestry;
(ii) The achievement of an apportionment of land between different uses and a combination land with other factors (e.g Intensity of cultivation) which would help to produce the needed quantity and quality of different agricultural or forestry products at the lowest possible costs in terms of the factors of production employed in or available to agriculture;
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(iii) The improvement in the quality of used land through such measures as irrigation and conservation of the fertility of land; and
(iv) To facilitate such shifts in land-use as would increase the returns to the factors employed in agriculture and thus lead to an improved pattern of production without causing any serious dislocation in the economy.
For achieving these objectives, proper land-use planning is a pre-requisite. Before the land-use planning is done, it is necessary to have a detailed classification of the country into agro climatic regions and zones, based on the data on rainfall, temperature, humidity, soils, existing cropping patterns, irrigation, density of population, livestock, etc.
After such a classification is done, it would be necessary to work out the optimum land-use and cropping patterns for each area, consistent with the overall demands for agricultural commodities to satisfy the domestic and export requirement. This should form the basis of agricultural development programmes under the successive Five-Year Plans.
National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP):
The Government of India have decided to implement the Centrally-Sponsored scheme in the shape of the National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) by merging two existing Centrally-Sponsored Schemes of Computerization of Land Records (CLR) and Strengthening of Revenue Administration and Updating of Land Records (SRA&ULR) in the Department of Land Resources (DoLR), Ministry of Rural Development.
The integrated programme would modernize management of land records, minimize scope of land/property disputes, enhance transparency in the land records maintenance system, and facilitate moving eventually towards guaranteed conclusive titles to immovable properties in the country.
The major components of the programme are computerization of all land records including mutations, digitization of maps and integration of textual and spatial data, survey/re-survey and updation of all survey and settlement records including creation of original cadastral records wherever necessary, computerization of registration and its integration with the land records maintenance system, development of core Geospatial Information System (GIS) and capacity building.
This document outlines the objectives of the NLRMP, major activities under it and implementation guidelines for the State Governments, UT Administration and the implementing agencies.