“Bamboo” transports the Indian village of Pachgaon from extreme poverty to prosperity

With the sunrise of each morning, the sound of axes hitting wood echoes in the bamboo forest in the village of Bachgaon in the state of Maharashtra in central India, where there is a huge warehouse, larger than a cricket field, filled with bamboo branches stacked on top of each other according to size in different sections.

Close to the warehouse, there is a small, windowless office painted in jungle colors, with a small number of employees working to keep track of the bamboo work. It witnessed Pachgaon’s transformation from abject poverty to prosperity within a decade.

One of the council members responsible for the village, Sanjay Gajanan Gopanwar, said: “Previously, the forest was in the custody of the forest department, but now it is in our custody. We have set 115 rules on how to expand, care for and protect it.”

Implementing laws

The story of the village of Pachgaon’s rise from poverty to relative wealth follows the implementation of two long-standing laws that restored to the local tribal community their traditional rights to ownership of forests, which they had lost to rulers and colonialists several generations earlier.

Under the Forest Rights Act 2006 and the Panchayat (Extension to Schedule Areas) Act 1996, tribal village councils, or panchayats, can apply for “community forest rights papers,” or titles to specific forest resources, and form councils. It has its own village to make decisions on governance and marketing of the fruits, seeds, herbs and trees that are cut in the forest.

When the laws, including those relating to forests, came into effect, they were welcomed as progressive legislation that would correct the historical injustice that tribal communities had suffered for years, but poor awareness on the part of forest dwellers, and the government’s reluctance to hand over full control, led to the scarcity of implementation of these laws.

However, the residents of Pachgaon continued their pursuit of their rights with determination and stubbornness. They obtained papers confirming their rights to community forests in 2012, and were able to own an area of ​​​​1,006 hectares of forest land, and their village became autonomous.

The bamboo trade in the village generated huge profits amounting to 3.7 million rupees during the last financial year, and a total of 34 million rupees in the past decade.

small village

According to what a member of the village board of directors, Sanjay Gajanan Gobanwa, said, Pachgaon is a small village inhabited by only 300 people, most of whom are from the Gond tribe, one of the largest Indian tribes. He added: “The majority of the residents here do not own land, so they depend on the forest for their livelihood.” Their livelihood.”

Gobanwa continued: “Agricultural work in our village was not stable due to the recurring floods every season with monsoon winds that damage crops. The villagers had no choice but to migrate in search of work in the city of Karnataka and the state of Gujarat, and even after working for 12 hours a day, they were not They have enough money.”

Employment guarantee

The pattern that had prevailed for decades in the village of Bachgaon would have continued unchanged had it not been for the intervention of environmental activist Vijay Dithi, who works to improve livelihoods in nearby villages and passes through Bachgaon daily.

“I recognize Pachgaon by its bamboo trees,” said Dithi, sipping tea from a street-side café, recalling the assistance he provided to villagers to implement the newly approved National Rural Employment Guarantee programme, which offers 100 days of paid work to adults. The employment program helped bring back some migrants to Pachgaon village who were hoping to find work in the village itself even if it did not pay as well as what they get in the city.”

Increasingly desperate for work, the villagers approached Dithi, who had just graduated from university, to check if there was some way that could bring in more income from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Dithi saw the answer in the rich bamboo reserve, and told the villagers about the Forest Rights Act of 2006, which would give them the opportunity to own the forest.

Owning the forest

In 2009, Bachgaon applied for forest ownership rights, and waited three years to receive a response, but she continued to demand, sending reminder letters to officials, and even planning a protest. However, before taking to the street, the village received a positive response to her application on June 25, 2012. This date is now celebrated annually as Forest Rights Day.

A village resident, Vinod Ramswaroop Tikam (35 years old), said: “The day we obtained the papers for the forest ownership right was a festival, and we felt astonished that we had won this right, and that our peaceful protest had borne fruit. We have now become completely certain that the forest truly belongs to us,” he added, adding: “After we obtained the papers, many villagers returned from the cities where they worked, and bamboo became our source of livelihood.”

Revenue

Records show that Bachgaon sold 8,100 bundles of bamboo for 700,000 rupees in 2013, the first year the village started the trade, and the following year it sold about 17,000 bundles, this time worth 2.7 million rupees.

During the past decade, the bamboo trade achieved revenues amounting to about six million rupees annually, with the exception of 2020 during the Corona pandemic, when revenues fell to less than 800 thousand rupees.

Despite this, the village association was keen to pay the salaries of the employees, who number about 70 villagers who work by cutting bamboo in the forest at all times, and none of them had to leave the village to look for work.

As business grew, so did office work. The village established a one-room office with a computer and printer in 2015.

However, I decided not to follow a hierarchical management structure, as there is no chairman or secretary, and if a person is appointed as chairman, the employees interact with that person only, and in this way everyone participates, said a Pachgaon resident. About the Guardian

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Job opportunities

The residents of the Indian village of Bachgaon are not business people who crunch numbers and study spreadsheets to track revenues and profits, but they clearly understand the purpose of the proceeds: to create jobs in the village, finance raw materials for building houses and support university education for young villagers.

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New spaces

Bachgaon village is also looking to the future. Realizing they needed new forests to continue making a living from the bamboo business, the villagers began expanding their farms.

They also realized that they needed to diversify their products, which is why the village bought more than four hectares of land from their profits two years ago with the aim of stocking forest products other than bamboo, and setting up a unit to process some of the forest’s crops, such as Indian blackberries and tendu leaves.

The village is awaiting approval of its request, which it submitted in 2014, to obtain ownership of another part of the forest with an area of ​​900 hectares, which will increase the volume of work carried out by the village residents.

Villager Gajanan Thimki sums up the dream of Pachgaon village by saying: “The next generation of the village will live here, and if they do not get jobs elsewhere, they will continue to do forest work here.”

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Equal pay

Although the cutting of bamboo branches ends with the onset of monsoon rains, the Bachgaon Village Association pays wages to workers for some of the work they do, such as filling pits, cleaning sewers and digging tanks, with each worker receiving at least 10 to 15 days of paid wages per month.

The worker and director of the village association, Gajanan Thimke (43 years old), said: “It is easy. If we do not create job opportunities, the village residents will migrate, and with a larger number in the village that means better work and better implementation of the work.”

“The villagers don’t feel like workers,” Thimke added as he rested in his courtyard after a long day of work in the forest. “We are our own masters now,” he said, looking at the axes he and his wife use to cut bamboo branches.

He explained that he cuts 100 bundles of bamboo branches a day, worth 840 rupees, an amount more than double what he earned when he was a migrant and worked in a cement factory.

Themke and his wife were able to collect enough money to rebuild their house with concrete and grow a small garden of vegetables and fruits to meet their daily needs.

In addition to helping villagers build homes, proceeds from the bamboo trade fund their children’s education, and more young people are earning university degrees, with two villagers completing master’s degrees.

The village association carried out work aimed at spreading equality among the members of the village. It pays the same wage to men and women, and all villagers participating in the work are treated equally, and there is no hierarchy, as the person who chairs a meeting becomes the decision maker for that day, while the person who chairs a meeting becomes the decision maker for that day, while the village association To cut bamboo branches the next day.

Villager Jayshir Tarachi Atram (36 years old) said: “Men always received more wages than us for the same work that we did as them, and everything was a challenge for us, such as food, health care, and education, and we worked hard to make a living. But now we receive equal wages with men, which helps us meet our needs.”

. The bamboo trade in the village has generated revenues of six million rupees annually over the past decade.

. The residents of Bachgaon established their right to their village forests, owning 1,006 hectares of land.

. The population of Bachgaon is only 300 people, most of them from the Gond tribe, one of the largest Indian tribes.