Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Enhancing PESA
The Unfinished Agenda
Kamal Nayan Choubey
EPW
COMMENTARY
inscribing process even before the enactment of the state-level act or the formulation of rules related to PESA. For instance,
during my fieldwork in the Udaipur district of Rajasthan I found that the nongovernmental organisation Aastha and the
Jungle Zameen Andolan established
shilalekh (another term for pathargadhi)
in more than 350 villages of Udaipur
district and declared village self-rule in
these PESA areas. It was a process of
political education for the villagers as they
informed concerned authorities in the
forest department and the block development officer about these actions. In many
villages, on the basis of the central law,
people asserted their rights over common
resources of their village and non-timber forest produce (NTFP) in their traditional Nitstar forests. They stopped the
intervention of local administration and
forest department in their day-to-day activities. Interestingly, since Rajasthan
has not formulated rules till 2011, their
claim regarding village self-rule (gaon
ganarajya) was contestable.
In recent years, many reports The
Report of Expert Group of the Planning
Commission on Development Challenges
in Extremist Affected Areas (2008), the
Sixth Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2007),
the Balchandra Mungekar Committee
Report (2009), etc have clearly underlined the dismal situation of the implementation of PESA. These and many other
reports prepared by many peoples organisations have recommended that the state
EPW E-books
Select EPW books are now available as e-books in Kindle and iBook (Apple) formats.
The titles are
1. Village Society (ED. SURINDER JODHKA)
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CS62AAW ;
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/village-society/id640486715?mt=11)
2. Environment, Technology and Development (ED. ROHAN DSOUZA)
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CS624E4 ;
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/environment-technology-development/
id641419331?mt=11)
3. Windows of Opportunity: Memoirs of an Economic Adviser (BY K S KRISHNASWAMY)
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CS622GY ;
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/windows-of-opportunity/id640490173?mt=11)
Please visit the respective sites for prices of the e-books. More titles will be added gradually.
febrUARY 21, 2015
vol l no 8
EPW
COMMENTARY
vol l no 8
EPW
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