Annual Report 2009-2010 - Department of Agriculture & Co-operation

Creation of employment opportunities
and improving the socio-economic
conditions of the rural community;
Development of human resources
through training and capacity building
programmes in the area of soil and water
conservation.
14.4 Schemes/Programmes: The Natural
Resource Management (NRM) division is
implementing the following central sector and
centrally sponsored programmes for the
development of degraded lands:
1. CENTRAL SECTOR SCHEMES
14.5 Soil and Land Use Survey of India (SLUSI):
SLUSI is a subordinate office of the Department
of Agriculture and Cooperation, the Ministry of
Agriculture, and the Government of India. It was
established in 1958, with its headquarters in New
Delhi. SLUSI has seven regional centres located
at Noida, Kolkata, Bangalore, Nagpur, Hyderabad,
Ahmedabad, and Ranchi. The major mandate of
SLUSI is to conduct various types of soil and land
resource surveys and provide a soil-related
database for the planning and implementation
of programmes relating to soil and water
conservation for the development of degraded
lands. The main activities are:
Rapid Reconnaissance Surveys (RRS) of
watersheds of the catchments of river
valley projects and flood prone rivers;
Detailed Soil Surveys (DSS) of selected
very high and high priority watersheds to
provide a sound database for the
execution of soil conservation measures,
as well as for scientific land use planning;
Soil Resource Mapping (SRM);
Development of a GIS-based web server;
Organising short training courses on soil
surveys and data use for the planning of
watershed management; and
Consultancy projects on soil mapping.
14.6 The organisation is engaged in
conducting soil surveys to provide a database
for land-based developmental programmes for
user organisations. Besides, SLUSI provides
training to state officials drawn from state
departments such as agriculture, soil
conservation, soil survey, forestry, and irrigation.
14.7 During 2009-10, Rapid Reconnaissance
Surveys (RRS) of 156 lakh hectares, Detailed Soil
Surveys (DSS) of 1.60 lakh hectares, and Soil
Resource Mapping (SRM) of 161.46 lakh
hectares has been targeted. Against these
targets, RRS of 80.61 lakh hectares, DSS of 0.40
lakh hectares and SRM of 37.5 lakh hectares have
been completed up to December 2009.
14.8 Soil Conservation Training Centre,
Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), Hazaribagh,
Jharkhand: The Soil Conservation Training
Centre, DVC, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, organises
medium and short duration training courses
every year for field functionaries and project
officers of the state government engaged in
implementation of soil and water conservation
programmes.
2. CENTRALLY SPONSORED PROGRAMMES
(subsumed under MMA):
14.9 Soil Conservation in the Catchments of
River Valley Project and Flood-Prone River:
Presently, this programme is being implemented
in 60 catchments of 27 states (all the states,
except Goa) including all the states of North-
Eastern region of the country. The total
catchment area of ongoing programmes is about
113.51 million hectares, of which an area of about
30.15 million hectares is categorised by SLUSI
as a priority area, needing urgent treatment. The
Natural Resource Management
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