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
