Uttarakhand - Department of Land Resources

The State supports about 4.75 million livestock population out of which about 21.3
lakh are cattle, 11.00 lakh are buffaloes, 3.60 lakh are sheep and 10.97 lakh are
goats. As much as 36.5% of the population of the state lives under poverty line.
Three hill districts, i.e., Chamoli, Tehri Garhwal and Uttarkashi have more than 45%
of their population below poverty line while the other districts have around 30-40% of
population below the poverty line. Another important aspect of poverty distribution is
that poverty is more pronounced amongst some disadvantaged groups as
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, where 44% of families are below poverty
line. Inequalities are also evident in other parameters of poverty, such as literacy and
nutrition levels. For example literacy rate is 84.01% for males and 60.26% for
females. In case of urban areas male literacy is 87.21% against a female literacy
rate of 74.78%. It is comparatively lower in the case of rural areas with figures of
82.74% and 55.52% for male and female respectively. Literacy rates in case of
Scheduled Castes people are even further low with 46% and 20% for males and
females respectively.
About 70% of hills population is engaged in agriculture. There is hardly any other
major source of livelihood deriving from the secondary or tertiary sectors. These
sectors are very poorly developed primarily because of inaccessibility and
vulnerability of mountain regions. Although almost 70% of the population is
dependent of the primary sectors, the contribution of this sector of the GDP/NDDP is
only 37.5. As a result, it does not provide sufficient income levels to the people. This
subsistence nature, which leads to low incomes and unstable incomes, which in turn
lead to a sizeable out-migration of male members that leads to only women headed
families behind, and the role of women in the household economy becomes more
important.
Because of the extraction of natural resources by the inhabitants for subsistence
living far beyond their capacity to regenerate, many areas of the state are facing
degradation of natural resources. For example, against the requirement of 18 ha of
forests land including 5-12 ha of well-stocked forests, per ha of cultivated land, the
ratio of forest to agriculture is only 1.33:1 and the ratio of well-stocked forests to
agricultural land is only 0.84:1. Further, soil erosion from the different land use
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