blicly that the farmland
problem had become increasingly more serious and that the committee was
obliged to intervene in order to identify shortcomings in the land
preservation work and to assist in eliminating the deficiencies. At the
same time the Council of Ministers reprimanded a deputy minister of
agriculture and the heads of two district governments for grave
shortcomings in the preservation and use of farmland.

In an effort to gain control over the deteriorating farmland situation,
a new land protection law that replaced the law of 1967 was passed in
March 1973. The new law explicitly provided that only land unsuitable
for agricultural purposes or farmland of low productivity could be put
to nonagricultural use. Under the law expansion of towns and villages
was to be allowed only after a specified density of construction had
been reached. Construction of country homes and resort facilities was
restricted to land unsuitable for agriculture. Provision was made for
regulations that would offer material and moral incentives to use
unproductive land for construction purposes, and more severe penalties
were prescribed for violations that result in the waste of arable land.

Irrigation

Somewhat better results have been achieved in the expansion of
irrigation. In the 1965-70 period the irrigable area increased at an
annual average of 44,000 acres from 2.25 million to 2.47 million acres,
or 21 percent of the cultivated land. Under the Sixth Five-Year Plan
(1971-75) 494,000 acres are to be added to the irrigable area, raising
the total irrigable acreage to 26 percent of the cultivated land. During
the first two years of the plan period 124,000 acres were equipped for
irrigation, and 80,000 acres were to be made irrigable in 1973. In order
to complete the five-year irrigation program on schedule, therefore, it
would be necessary to bring under irrigation 270,000 acres in the last
two years of the plan period--a task not likely to be accomplished in
the light of past experience and of available resources.

Only about 70 percent of the irrigable acreage was actually irrigated in
the 1965-70 period. Although the irrigated area of 1.7 million acres in
1970 represented an increase of 21 percent of the acreage irrigated in
1965, it was 17 percent smaller than the acreage irrigated in 1968.

Primitive gravity irrigation is practiced on about nine-tenths of the
irrigated area. Water is distributed over the fields from unlin