National rainfed area body gets nod

The Cabinet has cleared the long-pending proposal for the setting up of a National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA), which will have the agriculture minister as chairman and the rural development minister as co-chairman.

The tussle between Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh over who should head the authority had been holding up the creation of the NRAA, which was announced over a year ago by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his independence day address on August 15, 2005.

The matter was finally resolved by the group of ministers (GoM), headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, which suggested that both the ministers could co-chair the authority.

Though both Pawar and Singh were understood to be reluctant to accept this arrangement, the prime minister endorsed the GoM's recommendation, paving the way for the Cabinet to finally approve the proposal.

According to the final decision, the proposed authority would have a two-tier structure consisting of a 14-member governing board and an executive committee headed by a professional chief executive officer (CEO).

The governing board would be chaired by the agriculture minister and co-chaired by the rural development minister. The other concerned ministries, including those of environment and forests, water resources and Panchayati Raj, would also be represented on the board.

The other members of the board would include secretaries of the concerned ministries, including that of the department of agricultural research and education (DARE), member (agriculture) of the Planning Commission and the chairman of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).

The executive committee would include five technical experts from fields like water management, forestry, horticulture and others. Besides, it would have as members advisor to the Planning Commission and directors of the Jodhpur-based Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI) and the Hyderabad-based Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture.

The CEO of the authority is proposed to be chosen by a search committee to be appointed by the prime minister. Though it is not clear whether the CEO will be of full-fledged secretary rank or a junior rank, sources have indicated that anybody below the secretary rank would be unable to run an organisation which has to deal with several ministries.

While the rural development ministry has the maximum funds, estimated at over Rs 15,000 crores, which could be sourced for rainfed area development, expertise on this subject is available largely in the agriculture ministry and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Most of the work being carried out under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme relate to land. These activities, along with other land-oriented schemes, would have to be converged for developing the rainfed areas, it is pointed out.

Nearly 60 per cent of the country's total cultivated area of 142 million hectares (amounting to around 85 million hectares) lacks irrigation facilities and is categorised as rainfed area. Besides, the entire forest land of about 67.8 million hectares is also totally rainfed and needs proper treatment to increase productivity.

The objective behind setting up the NRAA was to alleviate poverty among the people depending on these lands for their subsistence.