Agriculture land falls marginally

The government today said the country's agriculture land has marginally fallen in 2005-06, mainly due to diversion of farm land for non-agricultural purposes.

Total cultivable land has declined to 182.57 million hectares in 2005-06 from 185.09 million hectares in 1980-81.

During the same period, land under non-agricultural purpose went up to 24.94 million hectares from 19.66 million hectares, resulting in a marginal fall in cultivable land, Minister of State for Agriculture Kanti Lal Bhuria said in a written reply.

"This reduction in cultivable land is mainly due to diversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes such as urbanisation, roads and industries," he said.

With a view to minimising the loss to farm sector, Bhuria said, "The state governments have been advised that in case of land acquisition for Special Economic Zone (SEZ), priority be given to waste and barren land, and if necessary, single crop agricultural land could be acquired for SEZs".

"If, perforce, a portion of double cropped agricultural land has to be acquired to meet the minimum area requirements, especially for multi-product SEZs, the same should not exceed 10 per cent of the total land required for the SEZ," he said.

In pursuance of the decision taken by Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), the state governments have also been informed on June 15, 2007 that the Board will not approve any SEZs where the state governments have carried out or propose to carry out compulsory acquisition of land for such SEZs after April 5, 2007, he added.

Since the inception of the SEZ Act, 2005, and SEZ Rules, 2006, formal approval has been granted to set up of 405 SEZs, involving about 52,922 hectares of land, of which, 21,626 hectares were already in possession of State Industrial Development Corporations and different state governments.