INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BIJNOR DISTRICT, U.P.

Abstract

Integrated Rural Development involves policies and programmes for the development of rural areas with the ultimate aim of achieving a fuller utilisation of the available physical and human resources resulting in higher income and better living conditions for the rural population. It is a matter of concern to planners in India that there has been a steady decline of the share of agriculture in GNP. This has been the trend .m presently industrialized countries as well but unlike them there has been only a marginal shift in the percentage of population dependent on agriculture. The result is that those engaged in the agricultural sector are on the average - less than half as well off as those in other sectors. It is imperative to think of a planning approach to evolve a methodology and to demonstrate that it is possible to increase substantially the agricultural income by optimal utilisation of land and water resources. This would result in a stimulus to the entire rural economy as additional income in the hands of the rural population will generate demand for industrial goods and other services. To sustain and accelerate economic growth it would also be necessary to provide other services and infrastructure out of which the most important is a road transport network. In view of this fact, the case study of Bijnor District has been taken up as an illustration. It is a typical agriculturally oriented district of Western U.P. with low industrial development. It has a total land area of 4,84,800 ha with a total population of 24.55 lakhs according to 1991 census. The present study consists of the following three parts. I. Planning to increase agricultural income by optimal use of land and water resources II. Estimating the impact of increased agricultural production on the economy of the district Demonstration of methodology for planning a Rural Road Transport Network A brief description of each of the three follows : I. Planning to increase agricultural income : This involves the following steps : a) Estimation of available water resources - So far irrigation in Bijnor district has been predominantly based on ground water. The estimated annual draft comes to 115,673 ham and the monthly pumping capacity to 53,987 ham. It is assumed that 85% of this or 45,000 ham/month will be available for irrigation. A network of Eastern Ganga Canal system is being extended into the district for supply during Kharif only. Its present contribution to irrigation is small. Estimating the ground water recharge from rainfall and increased seepage from canal system and irrigated fields, it is worked out that annually 1,66,500 ham will be available from ground water and 1,16,170 ham from canals, the latter during kharif only. li Y b) Selection of crops and estimation of their water requirements - After studying the existing cropping pattern, 17 crops were selected for planning purposes. The considerations kept in view were soil and climate, farmer preference, well distributed demand for water, self sufficiency in food and fodder and problems of storage and marketability. For these crops the Field Irrigation Requirement (FIR) on monthly basis was determined from pan evaporation data after making due allowance for effective rainfal1. c) Estimation of costs and benefits of the selected crops - Computation of net crop benefits involves estimation of gross production, its market price and cost of cultivation including inputs and human labour. The quantities of inputs like seeds, fertilizers etc. were taken on the basis of recommended agricultural practices. It was assumed that full water requirement will be provided to all crops and irrigation costs were taken according to the availability of tubewell and canal water. Labour costs were taken on the basis of available surveys and direct enquiry. The productivity was taken such as was being obtained in similar irrigated areas at present. d) Optimisation of cropping pattern through linear programming model. A linear programming model has been adopted to obtain optimum crop combination for maximum net benefit with available land and water - that is - 111 Objective Function Maximise Z = 2 Xi * Bi where, Xi is the ith crop and Bi is the net benefit for that crop. Constraints The following constraints are obligatory. 1. Total cropped area not to exceed available area in any month. 2 Xi * ai t < At where ait represents the fraction of month for which the crop is in the field and At is the total available area for cultivation. 2. Monthly water requirement not to exceed available pumping capacity plus canal water input in that month 2 Xi * ALt < Wt where At t is the monthly water requirement for the ith crop and Wt is the maximum water availability in that month. 3. Annual ground water withdrawal not to exceed recharge 2 W,t < 1,66,500 Where I Wgt is the ground water pumpage during 12 months of the year. 4. Non negativity constraint Xi > 0 Wt > 0 By a process of trial a crop pattern was evolved which increased the present crop benefits by 80% or a net increase of Rs. 182.7 crores. This involved no radical departure from existing farming practices or technology. IV II. Estimation of the impact of increased agricultural production on the Economy of the District. The additional agricultural production will require agricultural processing units like Dal (pulses) mills, flour and rice mills, oil expellers and cold storages etc. Their number was estimated and it is seen that they will provide regular employment to 32,400 persons. The more intensive cropping will result in increased employment directly in the farm sector of 15 million mandays. Besides these activities there will be substantial additional employment through trade and service activities. Besides the direct impact, there will also be a multiplier effect due to increased demand for consumer goods and services as well as social sector services. According to John Glasson the multiplier effect K is defined as K 1 1 - (c - m) (1 -t) Where C = marginal prospensity to consume C = I - S where S is marginal capacity to save m = marginal prospensity to import t = marginal rate of taxation Taking reasonable values of 20% for S, 30% for m and 5% for t, k comes to 2.10. With this factor the economic activity generated will be 2.1 x 182.7 = Rs. 383.609 crores. III. Demonstration of methodology for planning a rural Road Transport, Net work - The most important infrastructural ' development for sustained economic growth is an all weather road network. Najibabad Tehsil in Bijnor district was selected for planning a most efficient rural road network. A number of growth centres were initially identified based on their population and other attributes like education, health, P & T, market days, communications and power supply etc. The entire area was then divided into hexagons having a side of 4 km. 25 such hexagons were formed, a few of them partial. A growth centre was selected for each hexagon. The road network has t link these growth centres to each other and to the major urban centre of Najibabad. The demographic force of interaction between any two centres was calculated by the following expression. Pi x Pj x CSi x CSj Fij = _ d2i j o where Pi and PD are the populations, CSi and CSj the centrality scores and dij the distance between centres iand jrespectively. A road network has been planned which keeps the total link length (total road length to be constructed) and the total route length (the total distance required to be travelled from every node to all other nodes) at a minimum or optimum level.

CONCLUSIONS The study revealed that optimal use of resources can result in a substantial increase in rural incomes. This results in a very considerable rise in economic activity and employment. A methodology has been demonstrated to plan a rural road network for maximum efficiency at minimum cost.