Abstract
In India the “Drought Prone Areas” occupy nearly 20 percent of the total land with more than 60 millions of population at present. It should be noted that the Indian government has paid special attention to the welfare of the people and introduced various policies and programmes. In recent years, the government has introduced two types of rural development schemes in these areas: (1) large-scale scheme (construction of canal irrigation system with a big dam), and (2) small-scale scheme (installation of irrigatioe wells, soil conservation and afforestation work etc.).
This study is fundamentally concerned with the rural development and its impact on the changes of land use in the semi-arid region of the southern Deccan plateau. As our intensively investigated area, we selected two villages, Yerdona and Pidarakere, each of which is located respectively within the large-scale or the small-scale scheme areas stated above.
The land use of Yerdona has been drastically changed since the irrigation canals were connected to the fields of this village in 1957. Due to receiving a large quantity of water, the irrigated land gradually increased from only 1.2 percent in 1957 to 54.5 percent of all arable land by 1980. In these irrigated land, the dry crops such as sorghum (“jowal”), pearl millet (“bajra”) were replaced mainly by rice, groundnuts, cotton, etc. which are much more profitable than dry crops.
On the other hand, the land use of Pidarakere has been changed with the adoption of a variety of development schemes based on the five-year plans of the government. For example, as the contour bunding works financed by DPAP (Drought Prone Area Programme) were completed in 79 percent of all arable land between 1959 and 1980, it became possible to have a stable and good harvest of dry crops such as African millet (“ragi”), sorghum, onion, chilli, etc. And as many irrigative wells were installed particularly in the 1970s with the financial aid of IADP (Intensive Agricultural District Programme) and DPAP, the commercial crops such as sugarcane, coconut, banana, etc. were also cultivated in the irrigated fields.
It may be said that the rural development schemes applied to the investigated areas contributed to a great extent to the increased land productivity and changes of land use of the areas. However, at the same time the area affected by water-logging and salinization is rapidly increasing around Yerdona because an excessive amount of irrigation water is supplied to the land. In Pidarakere also the contour bunding works have resulted in the severe gully erosion in the black soil area and the groundwater of the village is almost exhausted due to the installation of many wells. It must be pointed out that these serious problems have caused by the lack of careful considerations about the ecological system of the land.
