NDA (II) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 56 of 150

Correct — C, fallow other than current fallow. In the land-use classification used in Indian land revenue records, fallow land is split by how long it has been idle. Land left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less is current fallow. Land left uncultivated for more than one year but less than five years is fallow other than current fallow, sometimes called old fallow. Once the gap crosses five years the plot is no longer counted as fallow at all and is reclassified as culturable waste land. The duration in the question, more than a year but less than five, sits exactly in the middle band.

• (a)cultivable wasteland — Culturable or cultivable waste land carries a specific condition — it is land fit for cultivation that has been left uncultivated for more than five years. The land in this question has been idle for less than five years, so it has not crossed into this category.
• (b)current fallow — Current fallow is reserved for land left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less. Here the gap already exceeds a year, so the land has moved out of the current fallow category.
• (d)barren and wasteland — Barren and unculturable land is land that cannot be brought under cultivation at all with available technology — rocky, hilly, desert and ravine land. It is not a fallow category. The land in the question is cultivable and merely resting.

India's land revenue records classify every reporting hectare into a nine-fold scheme — forests, land put to non-agricultural uses, barren and unculturable land, permanent pastures, land under miscellaneous tree crops, culturable waste land, fallow other than current fallow, current fallow, and net sown area. Fallowing itself is an agronomic practice — a plot is rested so that soil fertility and moisture recover before the next crop cycle.

The whole item is a duration ladder, and all four options sit on it. Up to one year is current fallow, more than one and less than five is fallow other than current fallow, beyond five years the land is reclassified as culturable waste, and land that was never cultivable at all is barren and unculturable. Fix the two boundary numbers, one year and five years, and every question in this family becomes mechanical.

• Land left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less is classed as current fallow.
• Land left uncultivated for more than one year but less than five years is classed as fallow other than current fallow.
• A cultivable plot idle for more than five years is reclassified as culturable waste land.
• Barren and unculturable land is land that cannot be brought under cultivation at all, and is a separate category from any fallow class.

• Reading 'culturable wasteland' as any unused cultivable land — it carries the specific 'more than five years' condition.
• Confusing barren and unculturable land, which can never be cropped, with culturable waste land, which could be cropped but has been abandoned.

A definition-matching item that turns entirely on the number of years, so the same four categories get recycled with different durations.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Land which is left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less is classified as

  • (a)current fallow
  • (b)fallow other than current fallow
  • (c)culturable waste land
  • (d)barren and unculturable land

  Answer(a) current fallow — the category for a gap of one agricultural year or less.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In India's land use classification, land that is fit for cultivation but has been left uncultivated for more than five years is termed

  • (a)current fallow
  • (b)fallow other than current fallow
  • (c)culturable waste land
  • (d)net sown area

  Answer(c) culturable waste land — the five-year mark is the boundary between fallow and waste.