Union state environment and forest minister Jairam Ramesh and chief minister Prithviraj Chavan will visit the village on April 27 to give transit passbook to the gram sabha which permits harvest and sale of bamboo.
The bamboo was earlier treated as a timber under provisions of the Indian Forest Act, though technically it is a grass. This gave the forest department the exclusive right to harvest it and exercise tight control on the lucrative multi-crore trade in bamboo. However, the Forest Rights Act changed this by categorising bamboo as a minor forest produce that can be sold and harvested by local communities using government transit passes.
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, intervened and coordinated with the ministry to treat bamboo as a minor forest produce. Sunita Narain, director general of CSE, who will attend the programme, said it is a very important development. "Since 1857, bamboo has remained shackled in the grips of India's forest bureaucracy which has refused to let go of this money-spinning forest product. Now the Forest Rights Act will enable villagers of Mendha Lekha undo this historic wrong and liberate bamboo by being the first in the country to exercise their community rights granted under the Act to harvest this and other minor forest produce," Narain said. Read the full report here.
Source: Dipannita Das, TNN, Pune.
