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

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
these models , it is likely that farmers in come may be sometimes actually higher
than what it is predicted, as a conservative approach is made in calculating the
yield and the income based on prevailing farm gate prices etc.( Annexure-III).
7.5. HANDLING THE ISSUE OF LONG GESTATION: FARMER NEEDS A
LIVELIHOOD SUBSIDY/LOAN
The challenge in the economic model is that the earnings of the farmer for the
first few years of conversion are below the threshold of their current earning of
Rs.75k per annum. The fact is that not many farmers will have the savings to
fund this upfront cash outlay. This would slow down the implementation of the
program because only a small percentage of the farmers will be able to fund their
livelihoods for the initial three year gestation before income rise above their
current earning threshold.
To tackle this, we are recommending that the government compensate the
nominal temporary loss of livelihood. We have assumed that the farmer must
have an annual surplus at least similar to their current average earnings of
Rs74988. With this assumption the additional government cost per farmer would
be Rs.75k in the first year, Rs. 74k in the second year, and Rs.15k in the third year
One of the very strong cases for justification of compensation of nominal loss
for farmer income is the eco-system services that rivers and the trees on the
floodplains of the rivers will provide. In the case of Uttarakhand which is the
origin for many rivers that flow into the northern plains has had many evolved
conversations on a system where the national government pays an eco-system
service tax towards the services provided by these rivers. If a clear economic
number could be calculated with most recent Net Present Value of the service
provided by the rivers, the states can levy such taxes on the users and use that to
fund the compensation for farmers.
As the government even if one were to look at the internal rate of return on
these costs for society as a whole, then the societal return on this investment is
a handsome 41% per annum. The temporary livelihood subsidy for the first three
years thus represents a very effective way of redistributing wealth in society in
favour of the poor.
554 Annexures