Joint Forest Management was a World-Bank supported programme in the 1990s which tried to develop community based forest management practices in India. Vidarbha region of Maharashtra is a forest-rich region and therefore much of the work under the JFM programme was done in this region. The basic structure of the programme was that the forest surrounding a village would be marked out and the area would be managed jointly by the villagers and the forest department through a joint committee called the Joint Forest Management Committee. One member of each family would be member of the committee and one forest department official would be the ex-officio secretary. Although the villagers were not paid for the their conservation work, the condition was that they would get 50% of the proceeds from the sale of timber and other forest produce after 5 years and 10 years. Now, even after ten years the people did not get a penny. Shramik Elgar followed up consistently on this issue and after several agitations the Principal Secretary Forest Department, Shri. Praveen Pardeshi himself intervened and the amounts were paid to the villages
Elgar Pratishthan Joint Forest Management
