Land use pattern in north-east and eastern hill states of India -a comparative study

Land resources of a region are not only determined by its geographical area but also by its uses. Hill agriculture suffers from several maladies. In view of the aforesaid facts this study has been planned to compare the land use pattern, especially for agricultural and other related land use of the states belong to North-East and Eastern hill (NEEH) states of India. The NEEH region of the country is still lagged in agricultural development. The states of the region are characterized by a group of low performing states, poverty ridden, very low level of infrastructure, etc., therefore, this region is purposively selected for this study. The north-east hill region comprised of seven states viz. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. Whereas, the state of Sikkim, the only hill state in the eastern part of country is also included in this study. And, therefore, another hill region is formed as North-East and Eastern hill (NEEH) region of India for this study. Only secondary data has been used in this study applying descriptive statistical analysis. The NEEH states contributed only 7.6% of the total reported area of India. Except Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, all other states of this hill region contributed less than 1% to the national reported area. Share of forests in the reported area of respective state was as high as 93.74% in Arunachal Pradesh. This NEEH region, which shared about 8% of national geographical area, contributed less than 3% to the country's net sown area. This clearly indicates uneven distribution of land use in the country. The study revealed that there is ample scope of area expansion for agricultural use in all the states of NEEH region with varying magnitude. On an average the cultivated area can be increased by about 40% in this region of the country. Only about 12% of net sown area in the NEEH region of the country was irrigated and rest about 88% area was solely dependent on rains. The state of Manipur ranked first in respect of irrigated area, which registered the level of 46.43%. The study in general reveals that there is much scope for increasing agricultural production in almost all the states of NEEH region by putting more area under agriculture, through various soil conservation and improvement techniques, and also by increasing agricultural productivity with increased cropping and irrigation intensities.