Save good farmland

The land market in India has seldom witnessed the kind of boom it is experiencing now. In most urban centres, prices have shot up by 100 per cent to 200 per cent in the past three years. In rural areas, too, land prices have risen appreciably, with the trend being more pronounced for prime agricultural land. Normally, every substantial upswing in prices is followed by a cooling-off period, however brief, when buyers shun the market. But such a breather is nowhere in sight. In fact, experts have been predicting that prices will continue to rise for some more time. This is not difficult to understand in the case of Delhi and its satellite towns, driven as these are by the fast-paced progress of metro rail connections and the forthcoming Commonwealth Games of 2010""with all the investment in urban facilities that it implies. But other factors are also at play which are steering the market upwards, and not just in Delhi. These include the easy availability of finance at reasonable rates (which may not continue for long), inflow of money from non-resident Indians, and emergence of big players in the real estate business. Besides, some foreign direct investment also seems to be on the cards in the realty sector.

Underlying all these factors is the growing population, the increasing need for land, the pressure for space in cities, and the traditional preference for land as an avenue of investment and as a hedge against inflation, besides being a status symbol. Why else would everyone, including business houses, want to own much larger chunks of land than they require for operational needs? One consequential problem that has not received attention so far is the alarming rate at which prime agricultural land is being turned over to non-farm uses. This will have a bearing on the future of food production, as well as fuel and water security. The country's total geographical area is 328.73 million hectares. And the landmass turned over to non-agricultural use has expanded from a mere 9.36 million hectares (3.3 per cent of the geographical areas) in 1950 to over 23.57 million hectares (7.7 per cent) in 2000. At the same time, the area under cropping""which meets the need for food, fibre and raw material for trade and industry""has not only ceased expanding but is likely to begin shrinking soon. The pace of urbanisation and industrialisation, as also of development of infrastructure like roads, railways, power lines and the sheer spread of cities and towns like Gurgaon and Noida (around Delhi), has progressively increased, consuming ever larger chunks of land.

What the country needs is a well-conceived land use policy that will be aimed at meeting the needs of a growing economy without jeopardising the sustainability of its land-dependent component. This would require land use to be based strictly on the quality and capability of the soil. Brick-making, for instance, may be vital for the economy but the deployment of good farm land for that purpose (which destroys the topsoil) is surely a criminal waste of a non-renewable resource. In other words, land that is handed over for urban sprawl and new habitat development, and for industrial uses (like the new special economic zones) should be wasteland or areas with poor cropping potential. Such considerations should dictate land use policies in a country where the land-man ratio is already quite adverse.