For a city that was for long scorned as an overgrown village, it is surprising how fast Delhi is losing its rural character.
Between 2001 and 2011, Delhi’s rural population has more than halved from 9.45 lakh to 4.20 lakh.
Rapid urbanisation — at 97.5%, the national capital is already the most urbanised city in India — has drastically shrunk the rural living space too. Between 1961 and 2011, the number of Delhi’s rural villages fell from 276 to 112.
An overstretched city, Delhi is India’s car capital and its people breathe the world’s foulest air. Under the circumstances, it would be suicidal here to lose even an inch of open, green space. And yet, according to the Economic Survey of Delhi released last week, the city was losing its cropped area at 2.28% annually.
Between 2000 and 2016, the farmlands under cultivation decreased from 52,816 to 34,750 hectares. The main reasons for falling agricultural activity in Delhi, the survey stated, was “fast urbanisation and shift in occupational pattern.” In 2011, just 1.31% of Delhi’s workforce was engaged in farming.
As families grew, average land-holdings shrank. At least 77% of operational holdings belonged to marginal and small farmers, who held two hectares or less of land. The farmers, of course, are doing their best, growing more of vegetables and flowers, that get them more money, and less of traditional crops.
However, the rush to accommodate the city’s surging population and booming infrastructure has ensured that Delhi’s farmers see bigger returns in selling their lands. Earlier, land sharks operated illegally to build unauthorised colonies in connivance with local politicians. Now, there is also the legal option under the land-pooling scheme of the Delhi Development Authority.
The responsibility of saving the city from ecological degradation, however, cannot just rest with the farmer. They are as much entitled to the perks of urbanisation as any other urban dweller benefitting from the city’s growth and opportunities.
The solution, therefore, could be upgrading the vocation of farming itself. To stay afloat, a farmer in Delhi needs at least Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh annual return on each acre they cultivate, says Diwan Singh from Natural Heritage First, a citizens’ group. For this, they would need help from the government.
Three years ago, Singh’s group had petitioned the Delhi government for incentives so that farmers did not sell their land for urbanisation and work on conservation methods that benefitted the local environment. The group suggested the Payment of Ecosystem Services as practised in Costa Rica to contain deforestation.
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