If any economic sector feels the heavy hand of the state more than agriculture, it is forest produce. Both timber and the "minor forest produce" or "nontimber forest produce" that the adivasis and other communities of Kalahandi depend on are controlled ei ther by state agencies or by merchants who have gotten monopoly licenses from the state. Prices anywhere in India and the consequent earnings from their labour of mainly adivasi women are kept low, and those in western Orissa are perhaps the lowest of all.
The failures of "nationalised" state agencies to make any difference in this situation are admitted by everyone. But few will point to the obvious solution that the trade should be thrown open so that people can sell to whoever makes them the best offer . Arguments against this do not even dare to claim that the state agencies give a better deal, only that where the monopolistic controls have been relaxed and "petty contractors" have entered (the example of Madhya Pradesh is given) it has made no differe nce.
Dr. N.C.Saxena, Director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Musoorie and an expert on problems of forest administration, has a simple reply to this. Yes, scrapping government controls produces the most positive results where gatherers and producers are vocal and organised, with experience of marketing, as in Gujarat and Punjab. Adivasi producers and others in remote, dispersed areas with little marketing experience (and especially the women among them) do face numerous obstac les. But this is no reason for government monopoly. The trade should be opened up but with government "promotional marketing boards" playing a facilitating role, helping people overcome obstacles of poverty, lack of information, market access, etc. th at is helping to empower them in the market rather than trying to eliminate it.
Writes Saxena, "It is their weak economy and poverty that makes them totally dependent on government staff, middlemen, moneylenders and urban merchants. These actors are too strong to be eliminated from the scene through nationalisation. Many-pronged stat egy is required to reduce their influence and improve the economy of the gatherers. . . .Government organisations may compete in the open market with the private trade. . . but government should never acquire a monopoly. Inappropriate tenure and trade pol icies and government imposed regulations also lead to over-exploitation of forests, besides low revenues for collectors" ("Impact on Forest on Rural Poor in Orissa," Wasteland News, May-July 1996).
Saxena does not touch the question of whether forest communities should have ownership rights over the land and its produce, but he does have some interesting observations on "forest protection committees" the most succesful ones have been those that ha ve arisen spontaneously in Orissa, not those sponsored by the Forest Department; see "Forests Under People's Management in Orissa," ibid., pp 45-52.
Manushi, Issue 97
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