Sound on paper

The environment and forest ministry is reported to have firmed up a proposal to lease wasteland to private entrepreneurs with a view to using private investment to achieve its target of extending the forest cover to 33 per cent of the total land. On the face of it, it seems a good initiative, because the government has enough land but inadequate funds needed for the purpose""estimates put the figure at over Rs 60,000 crore. The private entrepreneurs, on the other hand, will be better placed to raise the necessary capital, as also to secure the necessary technology, for greening the wastelands. Besides, it will meet the paper industry's long-term demand for access to land for captive production of raw material for pulp making. There could, of course, be other land claimants too, such as coffee, cashew and palm plantation industries.

However, this sound concept may be difficult to put into practice. For one, the industry will have to come up with bankable as well as socio-economically and environmentally viable projects. This would necessarily require good-quality land in contiguous large chunks. The bulk of the readily available land, on the other hand, is non-forested wastelands, such as the desert land of Rajasthan, Bhal land of Gujarat, ravines of Madhya Pradesh and saline land in several other states. The good point is most of these areas are either uninhabited or very thinly populated and are available in vast stretches, which allow economies of scale and minimum alienation of population from their sources of livelihood. But the problem is that the land is not too productive and will require heavy investments on reclamation measures. The industry, therefore, is unlikely to be too keen on such land. In fact, the move by some state governments in the past to involve industry in reclaiming such land fell flat for want of takers.

Degraded forest land faces a different set of problems. While this land does not require fresh investment or special technology for rejuvenation, protecting them from over-exploitation is a highly sensitive issue. Tribals depend on such land for survival and convincing them to part with it can be a tricky issue, as is evident from the series of violent incidents in the country over land acquisition moves. The process of leasing such land to industry can happen smoothly only if the local stakeholders""in this case, tribals""co-operate, but that sounds too good to be true.

Nevertheless, the paper industry need not be too concerned. Its requirement is rather limited""no more than 2 million hectares""against the total estimated waste and degraded land of a whopping 33 million hectares. Finding this land may not be too difficult if the policies are suitably amended. In fact, a sizeable chunk of uncultivated wasteland is available with the farmers as well, which the industry can access through the contract cultivation approach. Most of this land is capable of supporting short- rotation, quick-growing plantations of eucalyptus, bamboo, poplar and the like. The paper industry can split the pulp-making and paper-manufacturing operations, as is the practice the world over, and set up pulp units close to such plantations and carry the pulp to the paper units.

But, the real point is whether the environment ministry will succeed in expanding the total green cover though this move. That, indeed, seems doubtful.