Extent and Costs of Environmental Degradation in Sriramsagar Project Command Area: Integration with Cost Benefit Analysis

This paper focuses to assess the costs of degradation due to salinity and Waterlogging by loss of production method in the Sriramsagar Project (SRSP) command area of Andhra Pradesh. The loss of production method is used at the aggregate level to find out the per hectare loss of productivity of crops in this command area. The major findings of the study show that the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) is reduced to 2.15 from earlier estimated BCR of 2.39 after integration of the effects of waterlogging and salinity into the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). Secondly, the total value of agricultural output decreased up to a maximum of 5 per cent, when the total cost of land degradation due to salinity and waterlogging are included. It is feared that when the impacts of other forms of land degradation are integrated with the CBA, the BCR may come down below the minimum required ratio.