Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
7. ECONOMICS OF THE ONE ACRE MODEL
If this proposed model were to be implemented, the governments should be
willing to bear the short term cost of livelihood loss for farmers. Also scale and
the pace of the scale up required for the project can only be taken up by state
machinery. The major bottleneck of the project will be the willingness and ability
of cash crop riverside farmers to convert to horticulture farmers. Most of the
farmers who are small and marginal in India do not have the ability to absorb the
risk of such transition. The government therefore should be ready to provide a
livelihood subsidy or loan to the farmer for the initial years of gestation of the
fruit trees.
In case of the inorganic fruit model the total quantum of investment required over
three years for the entire set of two million odd farmers on the 20,000 kilometre
river length would be Rs. 33,000 crores over the entire three year period of
gestation (assuming Rs.75k, Rs. 74k, and Rs. 15k required in year 1,2,3 respectively
for a given farmer). For the organic fruit model the total government outlay
would be lower at Rs.26,000 crores (assuming Rs.75k, Rs.55k required in the first
two years for a given farmer). This investment could be made as a subsidy or as a
long-term loan to the farmer to be repaid. Either way this government investment
seems highly desirable given the enormously strong payback in terms of saving
our rivers, substantially reducing carbon footprint, ensuring significant forest
cover gains, large scale promotion of personal health, or even in terms of looking
at this as a financial investment for society with a strong internal rate of return.
7.1 COSTS/ RETURN ANALYSIS OF THE MULTI-FRUIT CROP MODEL
(ANNEXURE IV):
The cost economics of the model is based on incurring a cost of Rs.1.5-2.0 lakhs
initially in the first year. And in the second year varying from 1.8 -2.0 lakhs,
however, the intercrop provides a net revenue of about Rs.6k in the second year
itself. Subsequently in the third year the maintenance cost would be Rs.70000
to 80,000 in both the models.The most significant feature of this model is on
an average the farmers are able to get Rs.1.33 to Rs. 1.50 Lakhs per annum as
against Rs.17,000 per annum in pure crop model of growing mango( P-1 and P-2
). Besides, in multi crop model, the break even starts at 2 nd year itself in the case
Annexures
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