Planning the Environment
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PLANNING THE ENVIRONMENT Dunu Roy Sudhindra Seshadri Sanjeev Ghotge Arvind Gupta Avinash Deshpande Based on a report submitted to Department of Science and Technology New Delhi in January 1981 The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: “If this were only cleared away, “They said, “It would be grand!” “If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year” “Do you suppose,” the walrus said, “That they could get it clear?” “I doubt it,” said the Carpenter And shed a bitter tear. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHAPTER I: SHAHDOL-THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS CHAPTER II: THE THEORY OF CENTRAL PLACES CHAPTER III: THE DEMAND MODEL CHAPTER IV: SHAHDOL - THE DATA BASE 4.01 Location etc 4.02 History & Culture 4.03 Minerals 4.04 Agriculture 4.05 Irrigation 4.06 Forestry 4.07 Industries 4.08 Services 4.09 Credit 4.10 Marketing 4.11 Ecology 4.12 Health 4.13 Employment CHAPTER V: CONFLICTS CHAPTER VI: INTERLINKAGES CHAPTER VII: ENVIRONMENTAL PLAN BIBLIOGRAPHY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS — The variety and diversity of Indian names — This document that you are about to read is, more than anything else that we have lived through, a participatory effort of an enormous magnitude. Hence, our acknowledged debt is likely to be a trifle extended. We hope you will go through this listing for this section is an important as any other in this document — and perchance you might find your name in it: We would like to begin with Vinodini and Kalavati; Raimuni and Mira; Ram Murat; Ram Singh, and Kishore; Mali and Rikhi Ram; Kamal Kishore and Sunaina; who cheerfully fed us and looked after us, took up the most wearying tasks and did it with the minimum of fuss. We tried to help them as best we could but we must confess that our best was far from adequate. In a sense, this work is really dedicated to them. Of the numerous friends, mentors, and guides who hovered over us, offering a word of advice here, applying a gentle nudge there, G. D. Agrawal must count as first amongst equals while Imrana Qadeer perhaps counts as more than equal. There were others who participated in the analytical rites with varying degrees of enthusiasm and cynicism: Ashok Jain, Ashok Bhandari, and Narayan Chandra: Gecla Shah, Madhu Sarin, and Amrita Chachhi; Javed Anand and Paul Kurien; Vikasbhai and Nabakrishna Chaudhuri; B. N. Juyal and A. G. Rao; Jai Sen, Shyam Bahadur Namra, and Dinesh Mohan ; and lost but not least, Sagar Dhara. They wielded the birch and smartly brought us into line with their humour and sarcasm, leading us to insights we could never have possessed otherwise. Doubtless, they will be relieved to know that we have crossed the finishing line! Ashok Khosla and Thomas Mathew encouraged us to start all this and then they left us holding the bag! But others came to pick up the lifting tackles and helped to give form and substance to our ideas. Amulya Reddy, Atul Wad, P. K. Mehta, S. Ranganathan, C.V. Seshadri, Ulhas Gore, Prabhakar Mishra, Lalchand Kundanani, Nandita Gandhi, Rajit Singh, and Sukhdeo Prasad. They never did understand all the “mumbo-jumbo” either and were quite content to look on benevolently from a distance, offering a hand when needed, occasionally disappearing from our sight. And then there were the young ones! Pursuing their own dreams and visions they came to Shahdol to find out what we were doing. Some stayed longer, others stayed shorter; and it is a tribute to (heir kind (hat they all, each one, contributed to a growing picture of Shahdol. They trudged across The hills to interior villages; smuggled themselves into the industrial units; talked to artisans and workers, farmers and tradesmen; they ferreted out the details of the existence of men in the valley of Son; often hesitant and unsure, they overcame their own weaknesses and qualms, and ranged far into the corners of the district, and every time they came back with stories and information that they wove into their reports; The data they supplied spilled into many hundreds of thousands of words and numbers and, in this final compilation, we have been able to present only a small portion of it; they helped with the housework; they cooked and washed and argued until late in the night. They fuelled our existence. We hope their own lives grew sharper into focus because of the time they spent here. Their names breathe life into the Indian body: V. Jagannathan, J. P. Vasandani, Rajeev Tafldon, Harish Kumar, Jayant Talajia, Rajeev Goel, Ashok Bhargava, Mriganka Sur, S. V. Prabhu, Madhusudan Gaikaiwari, Sushil Kakade, V Prabhakar, Faraz Tyabjee, O. P. Singh, Arun Jain, Anil Tiwari, Sathyu Sarangi, Samir Bannerjee, M. Bhaskar, Shrikant Gadre, Christopher Flores, Haridas Pothra, Satish Jha, Subhash Avsare, Nilotpal Dey, Debashish Chatterjee, Biswsjeel Roy, Abhinandan Jain, Prakash Mairy, Rajeev Yadav, Anup Bhat, Khalid Myageri, Ashish Chand, Ashok Gupta, Uday Mishra, Prem Subnimaniarr, J. V. Mundhe and his merry crowd of eight from Marathwada, Sunil Kale, Adarsh Bhagat, Kaushik Saha, Kshitij Doshi, N. S. Raja, Surcndra Hatkar, R. V. Kalhurge, Bhimrao Jhagade, Loy Rego, Ravindra Gaitonde, K, P. Subramaniam, Abbas, Tegh Singh, Gangadharan, Prabir Dutt, Asim Jafa, Vinayak Eswaran, Sudhir Sahi, S. N. Vijay, Subhash Gatade, B. Kumar, Sunil Kulkarni, Sharad Bhoir, Nceraj Jain, S. Madhav, S. Ramesh, Durgacharan, Uma Shankar Tiwari, E. A. S. Sal, Mohanraj, Debashish Chatterjee, C. Mohan, Anurag Mehra, Asit Sen, Hindoo Pandhi, Manohar Sukhwani, Joideep Ghosh, Srinivas Kachche. That’s full four score and more of them and the limit of our memory too! And may the forgotten forgive us!! After a number of friendly wrestling matches the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, gave us the grant that made this study possible, and the Front for Rapid Economic Advancement of India, Bombay, consented to act as the godfather through whom the largesse could be routed. Like Hanuman’s tail our debt of gratitude grows and grows, to engulf the men and women of the Gandhigram Press. Bare-bodied Alagarswarny manned the printing machine single-handed. Mustachioed Rangaswamy the master compositor for whom every page was a symphony; Shakuntala, Santha, Hema, Arulmary, Kamalam, Seeniammal, Palanidnmy, Murugan, Venkataswamy, Gopal, Natarajati and Murugesan who composed and corrected, arranged and bound, with patience and good cheer; and their amiable supervisor Subramanian; Kanaiya for contributing the art-to them goes the credit for creating this document in the form in which you see it before you. A parting shot for M. R. Rajagopalan whose unnecessary advice and necessary enthusiasm were part of the process of clearing the last hurdles-to them all, our heart felt thanks. And we must not forget Lewis Carroll who has said it all before, much better than us. To all, our boundless thanks. On this journey we have immensely enjoyed their company. The credit for this document must go to all whom we have acknowledged. It is they who actually form the strength of the Shahdol “Group”. But we realise that Someone has to take the responsibility for all the mistakes and the flaws. So emerging from the security of our fellows, we tremulously put our names down for calumny to be heaped on our heads. Vidushak Karkhana, A. K. Roy Anuppur, S. Seshadri District Shahdol, S. Ghotge Madhya Pradesh. A. Deshpande November, 1982 A. Gupta CHAPTER I SHAHDOL - THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things: Of shoes - and ships - and sealing - wax - Of cabbages - and kings And why the sea is boiling hot - And whether pigs have wings.” Chapter I 1.1 Journey into the heartland Like a great, primeval slash the valley cuts across India dividing the country neatly into North and South. This is the valley of the Narbada, carrying the waters and silt of Central India into the Gulf of Khambhat, daughter of the Arabian Sea. If you trace the course of the Narbada, down from the salty flats of Gujarat; eastwards through the last spurs of the Western Ghats; up into the rich, loamy, black cotton soil heralding the end of the Deccan trap; walled in by the hills of the Vindhyachal range to the North and the hills of the Satpura to the South; travel 600 km further east and you will gently rise into the sal forests of the Maikal range, the link between the Vindhyas and the Satpuras; and finally to Amarkantak, the source. Go further east, over the watershed, and you descend into the valley of the Mahanadi which flows on into the Bay of Bengal, 500 km away. You have just traversed the heartland of the tribes of Central India and seen the valley floors which brought them to this last refuge of theirs. Move northwards from Amarkantak and you will abruptly drop into the valley of the Son, flowing west and then describing its great curve through the last of the Vindhyas to join the Ganga at Danapur near Patna. What you see before you, in the valley of the Son, is the district of Shahdol, the Sohagpur pargana of the erstwhile princely State of Rewa, also known as Baghelkhand. 1.2 Four thousand years of history The earliest settlers in the Son valley and its hilly tracts are the Baiga tribesmen. Nobody knows where they came from but they certainly pre-date the wave of Aryan immigration. Even today they are known to live in close symbiosis with the forests and are reluctant to take up cultivation with the plough.