Land Revenue Records maintained in India have categorized land-use into
- (a)6 categories
- (b)9 categories
- (c)15 categories
- (d)21 categories
Correct — B, 9 categories. India's land-use statistics, compiled from village land-revenue records, follow a standard nine-fold classification. It divides the reporting area into forests; land put to non-agricultural uses; barren and unculturable land; permanent pastures and grazing land; land under miscellaneous tree crops and groves; culturable waste land; fallow other than current fallow; current fallow; and net area sown.
- (a)6 categories — Too few — the official land-use classification recognises nine heads, not six.
- (c)15 categories — Overstated; the standard scheme has nine land-use categories.
- (d)21 categories — Not the recognised figure; the nine-fold classification is the standard for Indian land-use records.
Every village patwari's land-revenue record classifies land by how it is used. The Directorate of Economics and Statistics compiles these into a nine-fold land-use classification for the whole country. Net area sown, together with the current and other fallows, makes up the cultivable core; forests, pastures, tree crops, barren land and non-agricultural land make up the rest.
The nine-fold scheme is fixed; the trap options simply offer smaller or larger round numbers. Knowing a few heads (net area sown, current fallow, culturable waste land, forests) confirms it is more than six and far fewer than fifteen.
- Indian land-use records use a nine-fold classification of the reporting area.
- 'Net area sown' is the land actually cropped in a year; when sown more than once it becomes gross cropped area.
- 'Culturable waste land' is cultivable land left uncultivated for more than five years.
- 'Current fallow' is land left uncropped for one agricultural year or less.
India's land-revenue records group all land into these nine use-categories.
- Guessing a round number — the scheme has exactly nine heads.
- Confusing 'net area sown' with 'gross cropped area', which double-counts multi-cropped land.
Asked as 'how many categories or heads of land use', or by matching a land type (current fallow, culturable waste) to its definition.
The approximate representation of land-use classification in India is
- (a) Net area sown 25%; forests 33%; other areas 42%
- (b) Net area sown 58%; forests 17%; other areas 25%
- (c) Net area sown 43%; forests 29%; other areas 28%
- (d) Net area sown 47%; forests 23%; other areas 30%
Answer(d) Net area sown 47%; forests 23%; other areas 30%
Same concept — India's land-use classification. UPSC asks the approximate share of each class; this NDA item asks how many classes the scheme has (nine).
Any land that is left fallow for more than five years is termed as
- (a) Current fallow
- (b) Fallow other than current fallow
- (c) Culturable waste land
- (d) Barren and waste land
Answer(c) Culturable waste land
Same concept — the land-use categories in Indian land records. That NDA item tests one category (culturable waste land = fallow over 5 years); this one tests how many categories there are (nine).
- practice — not a real PYQ
In Indian land-use records, land left uncultivated for more than five years is classified as
- (a)current fallow
- (b)net area sown
- (c)culturable waste land
- (d)barren land
Answer(c) culturable waste land.
- practice — not a real PYQ
When the same field is cropped more than once in a year, the extra area is counted in the
- (a)gross cropped area
- (b)fallow land
- (c)forest area
- (d)barren land
Answer(a) gross cropped area — which double-counts multi-cropped fields.