Instructor: Satyendra Nath Mishra, XSRM,XUB

|| Office Room 02-219 || Extension:7752||

Name Roll No.

Asim Mohanty, UR18062
Bibhudatta Sahoo UR18065
Pritam Ray, UR18074
Sudeep Bahinipati UR18091

Class: MBA (RM) Section: B

Assignment Type: Class Assignment

Sukhomajri at the Crossroads

1. Case facts:

In the late 1970s, the people of Sukhomajri village in Haryana's Panchkula district earned nation-
wide acclaim for the way in which they had utilised their forests and water to their benefit. An
estimated 5,000 khair trees had matured in the 400 ha Sukhomajri forest. At an average price of Rs
1,000 per quintal of heartwood, these trees could reap more than Rs 50 lakh in timber alone. One
quintal of khair heartwood yields upto 6 kg of katha - an extract used in medicine, pan and natural
dyes - that sells at Rs 500 per kg, adding upto Rs 1 crore to the nation's kitty. About 5,000 trees
would mature in the forest every year. It was the result of a joint forest management programme
introduced in 1976 that Sukhomajri prospered. For the rest of the country, Sukhomajri became a
model of community participatory management. The project began in the mid-1970s out of concern
for the silting-up Sukhna lake near Chandigarh, which had lost nearly 70 per cent of its water
storage. P R Mishra chose Sukhomajri, which is in the lake's catchment area, and constructed four
check dams and planted trees. Initially, Mishra's attempts at regenerating the local environment
failed because the villagers had little regard for Chandigarh's water concerns. A 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 began 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 replaced their thatch-and-mud dwellings with brick-and-cement houses
and about 40 of them owned television sets. 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 about five years after the
setting up of the HRMS in 1980, the annual household income increased to Rs 3,000. Sukhomajri
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 Instructor: Satyendra Nath Mishra, XSRM,XUB
|| Office Room 02-219 || Extension:7752||

was one 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 per cent income tax, but it took the initiative to have such societies exempted the
same year. However, the society continued to pay 10 per cent 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 point of conflict in later years. In 1995, the forest department arbitrarily divided the 400
ha hill tract between Sukhomajri and Dhamala, a neigbouring village, disrupting a unique resource
management program. Till the forest department intervened, 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. Thus, the two villages began to compete for fodder. The division of the forest
also threatened social co-existence. Dhamala village, consisting 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.

2. Dilemma:

After the division of the land between Sukhomajri and Dhamala, it is creating more of a rivalry
environment rather than a cohesive effort to maintain the growth and sustainability of the forest
products and grasses. The decision whether to cut the mungri or not for the bhabber yield is
creating the major issues between the two villages. There is also a caste based disparity between the
two villages. The support of government and forest department to the upper caste is clearly
mentioned in the case. The forest department has made the official boundary of the forest for the
two villages and by which the disparity between the two villages has again increased in such a
manner that, they began to treat each other like two different country. The villagers of Sukhomajri
suggested a solution like, both the villagers would harvest together and in this way, each could have
got access to all the grass every year. But, practically the cast biased, the government interference,
Forest department involvement and other institutions are becoming the major stake holders in the
decision making which is making the things more complex and critical. How to eliminate those
stake holders’ involvement in the process and giving the freedom of decision making to the
villagers is the main dilemma in this case.

3. Suggestions:
I)

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