Even after more than a year, the survival rate of seedlings in GPs is merely less than 1%
The Gram Panchayats in Odisha carried out plantation activities in 2020-2021. It is an ideal measure in distressed times such as the COVID-19 pandemic for immediate income generation for returnees, expanding green cover and mitigating climate change.
Despite its best intentions in guidelines and subsequent letters, the programme is neither a collaborative initiative at the lowest governance level nor free from massive irregularities. The drive has failed to achieve its short-term as well as long-term stated objectives.
Odisha has been hailed as a model state in disaster risk mitigation (DRM) for the unparalleled efficiency of state apparatus, especially during emergency evacuations. The eastern state has arguably demonstrated marginal collaborative initiative in both inter- and intra-government agencies, as well as among the people and their elected representatives in the Panchayat plantation programme.
The devastating Super Cyclone of 1999 wreaked havoc on the psyche of governance, both institutionally and politically in Odisha. Since then, the Odisha government has taken several measures continuously to enhance its administrative capabilities to face any climate change-induced disasters.
The Panchayat plantation programme, however, can be termed as non-participatory and nothing less than a firm bureaucratic top-down approach, instead of meaningful collaboration of villagers throughout the programme cycle and beyond.
The political leadership, which has been considered the mainstay of successful DRM in Odisha for a decade, was visibly missing. For the last 18 months, the ‘plantation’ tab on the department website has been showing an error message on opening. At the same time, the concerned senior officials have remained tightlipped about the details of the structure, process and outcome of the drive during the pandemic.
The outcome? Fewer trees but more papers for documentation and files in Gram Panchayats (GP) and block offices. Even after more than a year, the survival rate of seedlings in GPs is merely less than one per cent.
Potential dangers to the success of rural plantation are:
Has the plantation program taken measures to avert these potential dangers? There lies the answer in collaborative or cooperative governance than bureaucracy-driven governance.
Participation of villagers was found to be ignored, an initial rapid assessment of 17 GPs of Pattamundai block in Kendrapara district found.
Was it business as usual for other similar developmental activities in GPs during the last five years? An independent evaluation of all programs would answer this.
Concerned government departments (Panchayati Raj and drinking water, soil conservation and forest department) have their own public relation documentaries of successful plantation activities. There are, however, a couple of media reports on exposing the systemic corruption nexus among elected representatives in GPs and block officials in Odisha.
Plantation activities are not new in Odisha. It has been implemented through various formats and schemes from time to time.
In mid-September 2018, the state government (Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water department) issued comprehensive guidelines for plantation activities by Panchayati Raj institutions (PRI) under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
They outlined procedures for the plantation activities in institutions, roads, private lands and degraded lands for GPs to follow.
The guidelines aimed to achieve several human environment aspects from maintaining biodiversity to combating climate change. But the series of letters from the district rural development agency of 2020 hurriedly directed block development officers to take up four-five plantation projects in GPs for person-days in the rainy season. The plantation objectives boiled down to merely propose, approve and implement projects.
Most of the villagers in the GPs are neither aware of the area’s plantation activities nor participated in deciding the place of plantation or type of seedlings to be planted.
The 2018 guidelines suggested planting fruit-bearing but endemic seedlings. But none of the GPs being surveyed had any such tree sapling on either side of the roads (linear plantation / avenue plantation).
Some officials argued that fruit-bearing trees would incite conflict within the village and also the question of responsibility to care and protect those trees would arise.
Gram Sabhas or Palli Sabhas, which are real authorities to approve the plantation project, or for that matter any project of GPS, were only scheduled and concluded on paper or through selective telephonic calls, rather than actual physical meetings or feedbacks.
It may be partially due to the pandemic during the initial stage of the program (June-August 2020). Initially, only a few elected representatives were invited once for a consultation at the district collector’s office. But a lack of training, expertise and understanding of plantation were hindrances to successful implementation of the project, according to several elected representatives. envGPs are not skilled in plantation, neither were they trained.
The types of seedlings were being decided abruptly at block / forest offices, appropriate varieties of seedlings were not provided and as a result, mostly died. Despite a request from an elected representative to provide plants that could withstand flood water, the project was approved for his Panchayat with non-water-resistant saplings.
After the 2020 September flood, all seedlings died. Composition of plant varieties were not properly planned in many GPs to leverage early income generation or benefits for the less deprived section of villagers.
Protection and care of plants by villagers are completely absent. The villagers rue that as they were not involved in the decision-making, it was the elected representatives’ responsibility to protect the plants.
As the newly elected representatives of the Panchayati Raj institutions have just commenced offices and the state is celebrating March 5 as PRIs day, it is highly relevant to strengthen GPs in addressing challenges of climate emergency at present and in the future.
A billboard of the Works Department depicting the chief minister’s picture reads that ‘This property is yours, built from your money and for your comfort, do take care of this property, Chief Minister’. Were villagers consulted as co-developer of the plantation project at the earliest stage? Were villagers participating in designing the project of what and where to plant? Have villagers or Gram Sabhas allowed to evaluate or assess the project after completion?
No, this is not collaborative governance at villages. Unless there are elements of co-imagine, co-initiate, co-design, co-learn, co-implement and co-evaluate all the 3Ps (projects, programmes and policies) related to the GPs and beyond, the collaborative governance is a distant mirage.
Avilash Roul is guest professor and principal scientist at the Indo-German Centre for Sustainability, IIT-Madras
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth
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