Hill Area Development, Drought Prone Area Programme and backward regions

Detail

1. Why special programmes for some areas

• Target area planning means making a separate plan for a region that has its own problem, such as steep hills, low rain or deep poverty. One plan for the whole country does not suit these regions.
• Why it is needed:
• Growth under national plans did not reach every region in the same way.
• Hills, dry lands and tribal belts fell behind.

• So the state planned area-specific programmes for them.

• India has two classic examples of this:

• the Hill Area Development Programme (HADP), for areas held back by terrain
• the Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP), for areas held back by climate

2. Hill Area Development Programme (Fifth Plan, 1974-79)

• Hill Area Development Programme: a programme that made separate development plans for hill districts. Each plan was built around the area's slope, forests, people and local economy.
• Coverage: 15 districts

Area	State then	State now
All hill districts of Uttar Pradesh	Uttar Pradesh	Uttarakhand (formed in 2000)
Mikir Hills (today Karbi Anglong)	Assam	Assam
North Cachar Hills (today Dima Hasao)	Assam	Assam
Darjeeling	West Bengal	West Bengal
Nilgiris	Tamil Nadu	Tamil Nadu

• Spatial spread:
• the Himalaya in the north (Uttarakhand, Darjeeling)
• the hills of north-east India (Assam)

• the Western Ghats–Nilgiri knot in the far south (Tamil Nadu)

• How the plans were made:

• Each plan matched the area's topography (the shape and slope of the land), ecology, society and economy.

• Flat-land models, such as large irrigated cereal farms, do not work on steep slopes.

• How local resources were used:

• horticulture (fruit, vegetables and flowers)
• plantations (for example, tea in Darjeeling and the Nilgiris)
• agriculture, animal husbandry (rearing cattle, sheep and goats) and poultry
• forestry

• small-scale and village industry

• National Committee on the Development of Backward Areas (1981):

• It said that all hill areas above 600 m should be treated as backward hill areas if they are not covered by the tribal sub-plan.
• Tribal sub-plan: a separate share of plan money set aside for areas with many Scheduled Tribe people.

• Result: height (600 m) became a planning rule for deciding which areas count as "backward".

• Western Ghats Development Programme (1974-75):

• It started at the same time as HADP.
• It covered the hill talukas of the Western Ghats, along the western edge of the Peninsula.

3. Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP)

• Drought Prone Area Programme: a central programme for areas that often get too little rain. It aims to give people jobs and to build lasting productive assets there.
• When it started:
• It began in the Fourth Plan (1969-74).

• It was formally launched in 1973.

• How the programme changed over time:

Phase	What it focused on	Main weakness
Early	Labour-intensive civil works, such as roads and earthworks built by hand to give wage work	Gave quick jobs but few lasting assets
Later	Irrigation, land development, afforestation (planting trees), grassland (pasture) development, and rural infrastructure: electricity, roads, markets, credit	Still focused narrowly on farming

• What the 1981 Committee found:
• DPAP stayed largely confined to agriculture and ecology.

• It did not create other ways for people to earn a living.

• What the 1981 Committee recommended:

• Alternative employment: jobs outside farming, so that one failed monsoon does not ruin a family.

• Integrated micro-watershed development: plan for each small area that drains to one stream or point (a watershed). Treat its water, soil, plants, people and animals together and keep them in balance.

• Cause → process → result in a drought-prone area:

• low and uncertain rain → crops fail and groundwater drops → debt, hunger and migration

• Watershed works (check dams, contour bunds, tree planting) → rainwater is held → more soil moisture and groundwater recharge → better crops and fodder.

• Later reforms:

• The Department of Land Resources ran DPAP, the Desert Development Programme (DDP) and the Integrated Wastelands Development Programme (IWDP), all on a watershed basis [2].
• These three schemes were later combined and changed into the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) [3].
• IWMP now runs as the Watershed Development Component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (WDC-PMKSY), a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development [4].
• PMKSY was launched in 2015-16. It aims to:
  • bring water to more farms
  • expand the area under assured irrigation
  • improve on-farm water-use efficiency [4]

4. Identifying drought-prone areas

• Planning Commission (1967): it identified 67 districts as drought-prone.
• Irrigation Commission (1972): it called an area drought-prone if less than 30 per cent of its cultivated area was irrigated.
• Logic of the 30 per cent rule: where irrigation is low, farmers depend almost fully on the monsoon, so one weak monsoon hurts them badly.

5. The drought-prone belt of India

• Main belt:

Region	State(s)	Nature
Arid and semi-arid Rajasthan	Rajasthan	Thar Desert and its edges; very low rain
Gujarat (Kachchh, Saurashtra)	Gujarat	Semi-arid
Western Madhya Pradesh	Madhya Pradesh	Semi-arid plateau
Marathwada	Maharashtra	Rain-shadow area east of the Western Ghats
Rayalaseema plateau	Andhra Pradesh	Rain-shadow, semi-arid
Telangana plateau	Telangana	Semi-arid
Karnataka plateau	Karnataka	Rain-shadow, semi-arid
Interior Tamil Nadu	Tamil Nadu	Semi-arid

• Rain-shadow area: the land on the far side of a mountain from the wind.
• The moist south-west monsoon wind rises over the Western Ghats.
• It drops most of its rain on the western (windward) side.
• It comes down on the eastern side as dry air.

• Result: Marathwada, the Karnataka plateau and Rayalaseema get little rain.

• Exception: Punjab, Haryana and north Rajasthan also get low rain, but irrigation protects them from drought (canals and tube wells). They are not classed as drought-prone.

• Link to farming: these areas are where dryland farming is practised, meaning rainfed farming in areas with less than about 75 cm of rain. DPAP and dryland farming are therefore closely linked.

6. Backward regions: Bundelkhand and KBK

Bundelkhand region

• Location: 13 districts spread across Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, between the Ganga plains in the north and the Vindhya ranges in the south.
• Problems:
• a hard, rocky plateau with thin soil, so little rainwater soaks in
• unreliable rain and repeated droughts

• farm distress and migration in search of work

• Bundelkhand Special Package (2009):

• Total cost: ₹7,266 crore.
  • Uttar Pradesh: ₹3,506 crore
  • Madhya Pradesh: ₹3,760 crore
• Period: 3 years, starting in 2009-10 [5].
• Coverage: all 7 districts of Uttar Pradesh (Banda, Chitrakoot, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba) and 6 districts of Madhya Pradesh [5].

• Works carried out [5]:

  • watershed development
  • surface irrigation projects
  • dug wells and their electrification (energisation)
  • stop dams
  • afforestation
  • storage and market yards
  • goats and bulls given to families, and fodder storage
  • dairy development
  • drinking water supply
  • crop and horticulture development

• Ken-Betwa Link Project:

• It will carry surplus water from the Ken to the Betwa. Both rivers are tributaries of the Yamuna and flow north across Bundelkhand.
• The Union Cabinet approved it in December 2021 [6].
• Districts to benefit [7]:
  • Madhya Pradesh: Chhatarpur, Niwari, Tikamgarh, Panna, Sagar, Damoh, Datia, Vidisha, Shivpuri, Raisen
  • Uttar Pradesh: Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi, Lalitpur
• Its foundation stone was laid at Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh [8].
• It is India's first project under the national plan to link rivers [6][7].

KBK region

• KBK stands for the undivided Kalahandi, Bolangir (Balangir) and Koraput districts of western and southern Odisha.
• Problems:
• repeated drought
• reported hunger deaths
• distress migration (people leaving home because they cannot survive there)

• a large tribal population

• Revised Long Term Action Plan (RLTAP), 1998-99 to 2006-07:

• Prepared by the Odisha government for the undivided KBK districts [9].
• Paid for through Central Plan schemes and Centrally Sponsored Schemes [9].

• Covered [9]:

  • agriculture, horticulture and watershed development
  • afforestation and irrigation
  • health and drinking water
  • emergency feeding
  • welfare of SCs and STs
  • rural roads (connectivity)

• District split: the 3 undivided districts are now 8 KBK districts.

• Later funding:
• Under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF), the KBK plan received ₹130 crore a year for all 8 districts together [9][10].
• The 8 districts were also brought under the Integrated Action Plan, with an extra block grant of ₹25 crore per district [9][10].

• Integrated Action Plan: a central block grant for selected tribal and backward districts.

• BRGF itself covered 272 backward districts across the country [11].

7. Comparison: HADP vs DPAP

Feature	HADP	DPAP
Plan period	Fifth Plan (1974-79)	Fourth Plan (1969-74); formally 1973
Problem	Steep terrain, fragile ecology	Low, uncertain rain
How areas were chosen	15 hill districts; later all hill areas above 600 m not under the tribal sub-plan (1981)	67 districts (1967); less than 30 per cent irrigated area (1972)
Main tools	Horticulture, plantations, forestry, animal husbandry, village industry	Civil works, then irrigation, afforestation, grasslands, infrastructure, watersheds
What it became later	Hill-area and backward-region schemes	IWMP, then WDC-PMKSY (2015-16)

Prelims Hooks

• HADP (Fifth Plan) covered 15 districts: the hill districts of Uttar Pradesh (now Uttarakhand), the Mikir Hills and North Cachar Hills (Assam), Darjeeling (West Bengal) and the Nilgiris (Tamil Nadu).
• The 1981 National Committee on the Development of Backward Areas set 600 m as the height above which hill areas not under the tribal sub-plan count as backward.
• DPAP started in the Fourth Plan, not the Fifth. HADP started in the Fifth Plan. This pairing is a common trap.
• Planning Commission (1967): 67 drought-prone districts. Irrigation Commission (1972): less than 30 per cent irrigated area. Do not swap the two bodies.
• Punjab, Haryana and north Rajasthan are low-rainfall areas but are not drought-prone, because irrigation protects them.
• DPAP, DDP and IWDP were combined into IWMP, which now runs as WDC-PMKSY (PMKSY launched 2015-16) [3][4].
• Bundelkhand package (2009): ₹7,266 crore, covering 7 UP districts and 6 MP districts [5].
• Ken-Betwa link: Ken and Betwa are both Yamuna tributaries, and the foundation stone was laid at Khajuraho (Madhya Pradesh) [7][8].
• KBK = Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput (Odisha). The 3 undivided districts are now 8, and RLTAP ran from 1998-99 to 2006-07 [9].

Mains Points

• Why plans must fit each region (GS-I):
• Hills and drought-prone plateaus fail for different reasons: slope and fragile ecology in one case, poor rain and rain-shadow in the other.
• So a single national model does not work for both.
• HADP built on local resources: horticulture, plantations and forestry.

• DPAP moved from relief works to building lasting water and land assets.

• Why watersheds became central (GS-III):

• The 1981 Committee criticised DPAP for focusing only on farming.
• This led to integrated micro-watershed development: balancing water, soil, plants, people and animals, and creating jobs outside farming.

• This approach now runs as WDC-PMKSY [2][3][4].

• Problems of backward regions (GS-I/GS-III):

• In Bundelkhand and KBK, a rocky plateau, uncertain rain and tribal poverty lead to distress migration and hunger.
• Responses so far:
  • special packages (Bundelkhand 2009) [5]
  • long-term action plans (KBK RLTAP) [9]
  • BRGF and Integrated Action Plan grants [10][11]
  • river linking (Ken-Betwa) [6]

• The challenge is to make these gains last beyond one-time spending.

• Drawbacks of big water projects (GS-III):

• River linking can supply water to drought belts.
• But it raises questions of forest and wildlife loss and the cost of moving water between basins.
• Local watershed work and alternative jobs remain the cheaper, long-term base of drought-proofing.