Evolutionary Background of JFM in Haryana: The Sukhomajri Model.

Sukhomajri, a village in Haryana falling in the catchment of lake Sukhna in Chandigarh, was once surrounded by the dense, moist, deciduous Shivalik forest. However, under the increased and continued pressure of both population and livestock the gap between the demand and supply of both forest products and the services that the forest provides widened, resulting in incessant deforestation and siltation of lake Sukhna.  When all vegetative and mechanical measures to arrest the siltation failed, the officials of the Haryana forest department and the Central Soil and Water Research Training Institute thought of finding a solution to the siltation problem in consultation with the local villagers of Sukhomajri. The villagers suggested that a small harvesting dam be constructed, to enable them to irrigate their fields. Soon, this led to substantial increase in agricultural production and reduced the villagers dependence on the forest. The villagers realized that in protection of ht forest lay the solution to their manifold sufferings, and this was the beginning of the ‘Sukhomajri Model’ of participatory development.

Sukhomajri model went through various stages of development to evolve into a full-fledged matured role model to be replicated in Haryana. The realization of the interdependency of the forest and the people was the first step towards participatory development. The villagers with extremely low standard of living could not be prevailed upon to stop grazing of animals only f they gained form it in some other ways. A second dam was built and certain experiments in afforestation were demonstrated to make the people realize the advantages gained. The increased productivity and the realization that afforestation would prevent siltation, improve water regime, initiated the process of participation and limiting grazing. Cereal and fodder crop yield increased and as people perceived the benefits of well preserved catchment, the practice of stall feeding was further promoted. The next stage saw the tackling of the distribution problem of water and other organizational problems being solved with the help of neutral external leadership and the formation of the Hill Resource Management Society for a village. The third stage i.e. the matured stage came in 1983, with contract of fodder grass being given to the village society by the government. Thus began the “joint forest management” in Harayana.

From 1983-88, the Haryana forest department extended the Sukhomajri model, as the above approach came to be known, to other areas, by construction 54 new dams in 39 villages. However, because of Haryana forest division’s limited capacity to assist the community in institution building Sukhomajri model could not be fully replicated. After reviewing the JFM in 1989, the Haryana forest department started systematic implementation of the program in Morni Pinjore forest division of the Haryana Shivalik with support from Tata Energy Research Institute, and funding by the Ford Foundation. From July 1990, it was extended to the Ambala/Yamunanagar forest division.

The case of Yamunanagar

Six villages of Yamunanagar, namely, Katgarh, Bagpat, Kaleshar, Salehpur, Pammuwala, and Bhagwanpur were taken up in this process to investigate the nature and operation of the JFM process.

The general socio economic condition prevalent in these villages is characterized by very low standard of living, with all the economic benefit and social status being concentrated among the relatively richer sections of the village. The society is strictly male dominated and agriculture is the main occupation in this region. The Gujjar jats and the Harijans are the only two castes with the power structure being vested in the Gujjar jats. Of the six villages, Bagpat is an entirely Muslim dominated village. With Gujjars being the dominant majority caste, overgrazing of the forest area and the resultant disadvantages that follow deforestation, had worsened all the more the economic condition of these villages. The six villages adopted the institution of JFM in 1989, and formed a registered Hill Resource Management Society (HRMS), but the practical work of the society started in the nineties. A brief outline of the working of the society in these six villages is traced below:

Conceptually each household should be represented in the society; in practice however, in none of the village society mentioned above, the total number of society members equalled the total no.of households (Table 1). In some of the villages, the total number of members in the society was more than the number of households in the village (village Pammuwala and Salehpur), giving way to the question as to who these extra members were?

The management unit of the society plays the pivotal role in decision making and the unit comprises mostly the upper echelon of the village. During the field survey, the frequent complaint heard from villagers was that the upper caste and better-off families inducted maximum number of members from their clan. That is how they have control on the decisions to ensure that all the benefits go to them.

Keeping in view the involvement and dependence of women on forest (for fodder and fuelwood collection), JFM is supposedly an excellent institution through which the role and scope of participation in decision making of the women in particular could be increased.  In reality, the role and status of women in these villages remain relegated to that of mute observeers, the child bearer and rearer. Though the rules make it obligatory that each management unit of the society have two women members and interestingly each society does have tow members; in reality, it is their husbands who attend the meeting.

Lease of Bhabbar Grass: Background

Since the inception of the 1980 forest policy and the formation of Hill Resource Management Society, under the JFM, the Haryana forest department started leasing out a part of the forest area to these societies. Prior to JFM, the practice was to lease out the forest to contractors or mills, who then used to sell the fodder and grasses to the villagers at very high prices.

However, with the lease given out to the HRMS, it was claimed that the villagers would have direct incentive to protect the forest area as well as stop grazing of animals. The production of bhabbar grass and other grass should also increase. The villagers should not only get fodder grass at much cheaper rate, but the society would get a substantial amount of revenue by selling the surplus bhabbar to the contractors at a higher rate. However, in reality, the entire working pattern over the period of time has led to the formation of a new class of contractors from within the village itself.  These villagers are none other than the rich and privileged section of the society, and the JFM has taken a regressive step.

The Existing Pattern of Ongoing JFM:

The forest department leases out the forest area to the HRMS, the HRMS then subcontracts the same leased area to a particular member of the society or to the village as a whole. Normally, the leased land is subcontracted in the name of a village, but within the village, one or a group of members buy the lease, pay the leased money to HRMS, and then take up the harvesting of bhabbar grass and selling it to outside contractors. The logic behind this was that the benefits which earlier accrued entirely to the outside contractors would now remain in the village, and the profits earned by the society would be used in building infrastructure and other facilities for the village as such. However, the profits earned by the society is minimal, and a scrutiny of their accounts revealed the flow of funds into expenditures which never took place. Even among the societies in villages (like Salehpur) where the venture was profitable, it was observed that instead of spending the money on building infrastructure or other facilities for he village, the entire money was being saved in bank, so as to enable the same society to buy the next round of lease.  However, the villagers who take the subcontract are the real beneficiaries. Thus, in a way the existing pattern is turning out to be serving group interest, rather than community welfare. Almost five years have passed since the societies were activated, yet no new roads, schools, irrigational facilities have been created by these societies under the JFM regime and the standard of living of the weaker section has also not recorded any improvement.

The following points emerge from the analysis of JFM operations under discussion:

In view of the observations mentioned above, certain corrective measures need to be undertaken for bringing back JFM on rails:

The success of our democratic polity depends on empowering the people through grassroots democratic institutions, i.e. Panchayati Raj. The case study cited above on operation of JFM does present a gloomy state of affairs. It will not be unreasonable to expect that the ‘Panchayati Raj’ may suffer the same fate as JFM. But the brighter side of he picture is that in states where JFM has proved to be a successful institution, the ‘Panchayati Raj’ will deliver what a people’s government ought to do!

Ms. Mamta Mukherjee is with the Environment Systems Branch.