Project districts:	Shajapur and Rajgarh
Forest types:	Dry Deciduous, Tropical Thorn Forest, Scrub Forest
River basin:	Lakhundar and Gadganga
Village institutions:	45
Total households:	3,330

Description

In Madhya Pradesh we initiated our efforts in the Lakhundar river basin Shajapur district in 1997 and in the Gadganga basin in Rajgarh district in 2001. The state government has earmarked13000 hectares of revenue land in the two districts for implementation of restoration and regeneration efforts through village institutions. Agriculture and animal husbandry are the dominant livelihoods. The proportion of common lands has been steadily decreasing, with most of the common lands belonging to the revenue wasteland category being turned into private holdings, legally in some cases and mostly encroached upon for the purposes of grazing and agriculture.

The acute scarcity of fodder and drinking water for livestock has led to our focusing on the regeneration of the commons and aiding the recharge and retention of water. The soil and moisture conservation activities undertaken on common lands have resulted in an increased availability of drinking water for livestock and human beings, increase in fodder and improved the moisture content of the farms in the downstream of the common lands and water harvesting structures. Besides, the recharge has also led to the revival of many wells significantly increasing the productivity and area under single and double cropping.

With the strengthening of the institutional mechanisms for governing the common lands, the village level institutions and their conglomerates particularly in Agar tehsil have been instrumental in building discussion and peer pressure on freeing 397 hectares of common land encroached by big farmers in as many as 22 villages. Such conglomerates with the help of the district officials have also been successfully negotiating mutually acceptable routes with migratory herders from Rajasthan thereby reducing conflicts and confrontations over unregulated grazing by the camels and sheep of the herders.

The fourth tier gram sabha with its mandatory sub committees for the governance of natural resources served as an effective habitation level institution both for the operational management of natural resources as well as developing a link between the larger Panchayat and the habitation level assemblies. However, due to the recent withdrawal of the mandatory sub-committee for the management of natural resources and the post of the treasurer (koshadhyaksh) at the gram sabha level, we face the added responsibility of convincing the Panchayats of the need for constituting sub committees. At an operational level we would involve ourselves in mobilising all the constituent hamlets of the Panchayat to constitute such a sub committee, and at a policy level we would seek for measures that would offer more permanence to such sub committees to insulate them from dissolution should the larger Panchayat find it convenient to do so.

Area Description

The region is a part of the Malwa Plateau and characterized by a topography that is largely undulating with scattered hills that form a backdrop. The project region in Agar lies in the catchment of the Lakhuder River and the project region in Rajgarh lies in the catchment of the Gadganga River. The vegetation is mostly of the Dry Deciduous variety interspersed in places with Tropical Thorn Forest and Scrub Forests. Soil type in both areas varies from Medium Black Soils to Shallow Black Soils.