Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
community working as wage labourers in bamboo harvesting.
In January 2010, the Mendha Lekha Gram Sabha wrote to the Forest
Department regarding harvesting bamboo from its CFR recognized area and
followed this with a meeting on the subject with senior officials of the Forest
Department at the district level. However, the Forest Department responded
only in February 2011, denying permission for bamboo harvesting. A year was
lost in bureaucratic delays.
Immediately after this letter was received, the Mendha Lekha Gram Sabha
communicated to the Forest Department of its decision to harvest the
bamboo on its own using the working plan of the Forest Department. The
bamboo was harvested in April-May 2011 and sold to a private contractor.
Of the total sales of Rs. 21.96 lakhs, the Gram Sabha paid Rs. 8 lakh as
wages and Rs. 12.56 lakhs was deposited as ‘Gram Sabha Nidhi’. The Gram
Sabha decided to allocate 50 percent of the Gram Nidhi funds for forest
conservation and development and 50 percent for community based
innovative development projects.
For the 2012 harvesting, the Gram Sabha initiated work well in advance.
It invited tenders for the bamboo, harvested and sold bamboo to a private
contractor, got the proceeds in its bank accounts and issued its own transit
pass for bamboo transportation from the village. The Gram Sabha earned a
record rate at Rs. 8,151 per notional tonne (weight of a 2,000-m end-to-end
chain of green bamboo) for long bamboo, which was 2.5 times more than
the highest rate received by the Forest Department in the preceding year
. The Gram Sabha was able to offer wages to the community to the tune of
Rs. 37.66 lakhs and an income of Rs. 49.04 lakhs was deposited as Gram
Nidhi. After this, the Gram Sabha stopped bamboo harvesting for the stock
to regenerate. Seeing the success of Mendha Lekha, 28 villages in Gadchiroli
harvested and sold bamboo through Gram Sabhas with the support of the
forest and the revenue department.
Source: `From state to community ownership in Gadchiroli’; NR Management Consultants,
New Delhi, unpublished draft.
Annexures
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