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| Institutional Innovations in Village Development: Community mobilization through traditional informal village leadership |
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Reference |
| Bhattacharya, Prodyut; Krishna Kumar, K N; Debnath, Debashish; Joshi, N K : Institutional Innovations in Village Development: A Case of Community Forestry From Bihar, India, FTPP-IIFM Community Forestry Project :Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal |
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Introduction to the Institution |
| Khahsitola, a small village inhabited by Oraon Tribals, lies 46 km from Ranchi. Khaksitola is one of the hamlets of the village Hariharpur-jamtoli. The area is hilly in nature and the forest land is almost confined to these areas. The village is situated in the Bero block of Ranchi district having 114 villages covered in 20 panchayats. Isolated low hill features interspersed with extensive plain lands and isolated pockets of forests are the prominent geographical features of this block. It is established as patch of a big mixed natural forest, comprising of fruit tree plantation, agricultural crops, medicinal plants etc. The soil is lateritic murram which is acidic in nature. The village consists of 27 households and the villagers are categorised in the following manner: 1. Tanabhagat (22 households)
2. Gwala (2 households)
3. Christians (3 households) |
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Coverage of the Institution |
| Not reported in the text |
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Rules for Management
of the Institution |
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(a) Boundary Rules |
| SPATIAL: The total forest area of the Hariharpur-jamtoli village ; 179 acre was distributed into three village forest protection committees viz.,** Khaksitoli 44 acres; Jamtoli 75 acres and Bertoli 60 acres
SOCIAL: This is a case of community mobilization through a traditional charismatic informal vilage leadership. Emerged in a situation, when the forest became almost depleted to the extent that even the village people could not meet their minimum needs from the adjoining forests or the women head-loaders got nothing to sell in the nearby places for their livelihood. Local people gradually started realizing that timber, fuelwood would no longer be available to the villagers as a daily need. In early 1970s under these circumstances Mr Simon Oraon, the Parha panchayat leader of the Oraon community organised several meetings involving adjacent 20 villages and finally resolved to exercise control over the situation after long deliberations that each village would protect its respective nearby forests from the contractors and the Govt. for the benefit of the village community and the respective panchayats would distribute forest produces to individual household according to their respective needs
Before 1991 there self initiated committees were functioning as informal body. After issuing of the notice of Joint Forest Management by the Dept of Forest and Environment, Govt of Bihar, a formal village forets protection committee was formed under the name "Gram Van Prabandhan and Sanskaran Samity". The organisational function of the committee was decided to protect forest, distribute forest products to settle problems, to resolve conflict and distribute works through the executive body as such:
1.One executive body was formed from each village
2.The Sarpanch or the Mukhiya was the head of the executive member of the committee
3. One family from each family become a member of the committee
4. The Secretary of the committee become the forester or ranger of the forest
5. The treasurer is selected from the village people
6. One executive member being eithera teacher or an educated person
7. Among the active member half would be male members and half female members
There are 18 general members of which seven are executive members |
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(b) Governance
rules |
| The system of management imposed by the villagers of Khaksitoli is more protection- oriented rather than use-oriented. The community has specific use rights
MAINTENANCE: From long time the village leader required a practice of "Shramdan" (free labour) for village development once a week. It is practiced since last 25 years in the village. Their labour finally gave a fruit for many development activities like construction of road, dam building, digging ponds, plantations in forest and on road side, nursery work or helping the other villagers in the agricultural works or during emergency controlling forest fires |
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(c) Resource Allocation |
| All the households have equal rights in the community. Villagers are usually allowed to collect dry woods for fuel. On genuine requirement of woods like burning of dead body, the request to executive committee or in case of emergency the village headman gives permission. Fodder are available in every household to some extent as they plant fodder trees in every house with community efforts. Free grazing is strictly prohibited. There is a common understanding that villagers never sent their cattle in forest as they have kept a separate grazing land also. The villagers have the right to collect non-timber forest products for consumption and sale. The Khaksitoli committee once did the multiple shoot cutting of trees in the year 1991. All the villagers got equal share from selling of small woods. With common understanding all the villagers contributed something for the development of water sources. Cutting of grass was prohibited during the monsoon period, which allowed grass to regenerate during the main growing season. There is a rule to plant fruit trees every year, after eating fruit seeds should be collected and seedling is to be prepared, nobody can collect green mango from forest, it should be collected after ripening. Every year they planted 500 fruit trees within their forest. There is a common understanding that they never planted exotic species in their village, in last 30 years except the local varieties. |
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Conflict Resolution Mechanism |
| Regarding sanctions, committee has the rule of fine for the offenders when warning or verbal suggestion does not work. Sometime in extreme cases social punishment like social boycotting is also practised which is more stronger than imprisonment and fine in the society. Fine is mainly practised for outside offenders.
Many time adjacent committee of Jamtoli, Bertoli give request for big trees to Khaksitoli committee for school building or other works. Khaksitoli committee fulfills those request for keeping good relation and for development of other villages. |
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Problems Faced by Institution |
| According to Mr. Simon Oraon, in 1978 they faced serious problems in protecting the forest.
a) In 1978 when the forest was sold to a contractor by the forest department, immediately they started making preparations to defend the forest in their traditional way with bow and arrow. They resolved that they would not allow the contractor and his workers to enter the forest. When one contractor failed to purchase the trees of that forest, he secured a lease to collect stones from the forest from the mining department of the state to crush those in chips with no objection certification from the state forest department. He installed a stone crushing machine, close to the Khasitoli forest. At the beginning the villagers thought that the scattered stones would be collected for crushing hence did not object. To their utter surprise they found that the labourers were digging out stones surrounding the roots of standing trees. As a result a few standing trees fell down and the labourers took the log for the contractor. One day all the villagers at the instruction of Mr. Oraon surrounded the labourers and the Munshi (the supervisor of the work). They charged the labourers and tied the Munshi to a tree. The villagers seized all the equipments of the contractor |
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Other Features of Institution |
| Previously tribal people used to do "Bishu Shikar" ( Hunting ceremony), other villagers also joined in that occasion, but due to this ceremony every year there use to be lot of destruction within the forest. People had stopped the festival in their village by rule being unanimously decided by all in the meeting |
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Purpose |
| Management of Forest Resources |
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Country |
| India |
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Region |
| Ranchi (Khaksitola) |
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Date Of Publication |
| RS-14\03\97 |
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