In an effort to productively use India’s wastelands, the Ministry of Rural Development has come out with the fifth edition of Wasteland Atlas -2019, eight years after the last edition was published in 2011. This is significant as it takes into account 12.08 MHa of unmapped area of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for the first time. The effort has resulted in estimating the spatial extent of wastelands for entire country to the tune of 55.76 Mha (16.96 per cent of geographical area of the country i.e. 328.72 Mha) for the year 2015-16 as compared to 56.60 Mha (17.21 per cent) in the year 2008-09,” rural development ministry said. As per the Atlas, during this period 1.45 Mha of wastelands are converted into non wastelands categories. A reduction in wasteland area was observed in the categories of land with dense scrub, waterlogged and marshy land, sandy areas, degraded pastures / grazing land and gullied and / or ravinous land, it said.
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