Gram sabha’s total control over forest produce makes ultras unhappy, reveal reports The government’s plan for economic empowerment of tribals to combat Left-wing extremism is yet to take off, despite the positive experience in Mendha Lekha in the Naxal affected Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. Notwithstanding legal guarantees, many village assemblies are unable to have a final say in the sale of forest products like bamboo. Last year, the Mendha Lekha gram sabha got full control over collection and sale of bamboo, and it earned Rs 1 crore. Based on reviews of the Mendha Lekha initiative, recent newspaper reports said that Maoists in Gadchiroli were unhappy with this ‘revolution.’ The rural development ministry, which has been spearheading the developmental approach to combat Naxal influence, has reached out to chief ministers of Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra for a similar initiative. “I, for one, am convinced that we need to create more Mendha Lekhas and empower gram sabhas to successfully rollback the spread of Maoist activities in a sustainable manner,” rural development minister Jairam Ramesh wrote. Under the Forest Rights Act, once the community rights of forest dwellers is recognised, the gram sabha has full control over the forest products. In practical terms, it requires the forest department to hand over the “transit pass book” or permit to remove products from the forest, to the gram sabha. Till the community rights have been settled, the forest department takes decisions on the sale of forest products. The transit passbook for bamboo was handed over to the gram sabha of Mendha Lekha last year. Though the process of recognising community rights in Mendha Lekha was completed by December 2009, differences over the status of bamboo as a ‘non-timber forest produce’ meant that handover of transit passbook had to wait for another 15 months. The move gave the villagers greater control over the sale and use of bamboo; as a result the gram sabha earned Rs 1 crore from sustainable harvesting of bamboo in the community forest. The Mendha Lekha initiative has not been replicated to any scale even in other villages in the Gadchiroli district let alone in other states with large swathes of bamboo forests. Since March 2011, community forest rights have been settled in some 400 odd villages in the Gadchiroli district.