Sukhomajri Model Village for Social Forestry in India

In the early 1980s, the people of Sukhomajri village which is situatrd in the Shivalik range of the Himalaya in Ambala district of Haryana earned nation-wide appreciation for the way in which they had managed their forest resource and water to their benefit.

About 5,000 khair trees had matured in the 400 ha Sukhomajri forest was having average price of Rs 1,000 per 100 Kg of wood, these trees could reap more than Rs 50 lakh in timber alone. One quintal of khair wood yields upto 6 kg of precious katha -which is  an important extract used in medicine, panmasala and natural dyes - that sells at Rs 500 per kg, adding upto Rs 1 crore to the nation's kitty. About 5,000  khair trees would mature in the forest every year.

It was the product of social forestry under joint forest management programme introduced in 1976 that Sukhomajri prospered.

Sukhomajri became a model of community participatory management for the rest of the country.

The project geared up in the mid-1970s out of concern for the silting-up Sukhna lake near Chandigarh, which had lost nearly 70 % of its reservoir capacity R Mishra chose Sukhomajri, which is in the lake's catchment area, and constructed four check dams and planted trees.

Initially, Mishra's initiative to regenerate the local environment failed because the villagers had little intrest for Chandigarh's water concerns.

A massive change in attitude occurred after 1977 when four tanks built successively created an increased storage capacity and increased crop yield rates from 6.83 quintals per ha in 1977 to 14.32 in 1986. "Water acted as the catalyst in the transformation. In return for water, the villagers were ready to protect the watershed," says Mishra.

The income that poured to come from cutting bhabbar grass and harvesting mungri or forage grass started to change the face of the village.

Prosperity became a by-word. The 80 households in the village reconstructed their thatch-and-mud dwellings with brick-and-cement houses and about 40 of them owned television sets as well.

With growing prosperity, Sukhomajri villagers were becoming increasingly conscious of economic self-reliance in the creation of community assets. They stopped auctioning bhabbar grass, which their Hill Resource Management Society (HRMS), set up in 1980, leased from the forest department, to contractors.

Just after the five years of the commencement of project and the setting up of the HRMS in 1980, the annual household income increased to Rs 3,000.

Sukhomajri was the rarest example in India of the few villages to be taxed on income from natural regeneration. A 1989 amendment in the Income Tax Act brought registered societies such as HRMS within its purview. HRMS was liable to pay 15% income tax, but it took the initiative to have such societies exempted the same year. However, the society continued to pay 10 % sales tax on bhabbar, which was imposed in 1993 with retrospective effect from 1991. They also had to pay a toll on bhabbar taken to the paper mills in Himachal Pradesh at the rate of Rs 100 per carriage.

However, bhabbar turned out to be a controversy in later years when In the year 1995, the forest department arbitrarily divided the 400 ha hill tract between Sukhomajri and Dhamala, a neigbouring village, disrupting a unique resource management programme.

Till the forest department taken the steps, the two villages used to share forest produce on the basis of social fencing (self-restraint in produce use). They shared grazing rights in the same forest area.

 The division of the forest also threatened social co-existence. Dhamala village, consisiting of upper caste Jats, were given a portion more saturated with bhabbar, the division placing them in a position to reap most of the bhabbar bonanza. Sukhomajri villagers, consisting of lower caste Gujjars, were no longer allowed to collect fodder from the Dhamala section. This led to tensions and a worsening conflict.


Learning From the Project
Peoples’ participation must be ensured right from the beginning.

The needs and the problems of the people must be identified at the outset.

Unless a project is aimed at meeting their needs, solving their problems and mitigating their hardship, it may not succeed.

Watershed Management Projects should have short gestation period. The benefits should available in shortest possible period.

Constitution of a village society (HRMS) must be a pre-requisite before taking up such projects.

The emphasis should be on sustainability and equity, i.e., all the common property resources must be available to all sections of the society.