FORESTRY-Gujarat Not a Model to Emulate

FORESTRY Gujarat: Not a Model to Emulate Bharat Dogra IT is customary for various official reports and reviews of forestry practices to repeat some suggestions over and over again, specially in the context of supposed welfare of forest-labourers and gatherers of forest produce. As evil contractors and middlemen are supposed to be the source of all exploitation of these people, the catch-all suggestions are for "expanding the network of forest co-operatives" and "speeding up the work of forest corporations" so that contractors and middlemen can be eliminated. These suggestions are presented and reviewed in such a way as if these are synonymous with the welfare of workers. In other words once the greedy middlemen have been eliminated and some work taken over by the Corporation' and some other by 'co-operatives' the welfare of forest labourers and miner forest produce (MFP) gatherers is taken to be achieved. The question of what exactly is the condition of workers under the new organisational set-up and how exactly it has changed is generally not examined, often not even raised.