Tribal residents of many villages in Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon and Kanker districts have decided to file an FIR against an official of the state forest department after he confiscated the tendu leaves that they had collected.
- The incident has brought to the fore the tensions over tendu leaf collection between the forest department and tribals.
About Tendu leaves (Diospirus melanocaylon)
- Tendu (Diospirus melanocaylon) is also called ‘green gold’ and is a prominent minor forest produce in India.
- Madhya Pradesh is the biggest Tendu Leaves (Leaves of Diospyros melonoxylon) producing State of India.
- Tendu leaves trade in all the producing states is nationalized. Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar are the main producer of tendu leaves and in all these states , trade in tendu leaves is nationalized.
- Nationalization means that State will have monopoly over trade.
- Different States did nationalization in different years.
- In 1964, the trade in tendu leaves was nationalised in then-undivided Madhya Pradesh. Until then, people were free to sell tendu leaves in markets across the country.
- Maharashtra adopted the same system in 1969, undivided Andhra Pradesh in 1971, Odisha in 1973, Gujarat in 1979, Rajasthan in 1974 and Chhattisgarh in 2000.
- Under this arrangement, the state forest department collects tendu leaves, allows their transportation and sells them to traders.
- The dispute is about who has the right to sell the leaves.
- State governments say only they can do so due to nationalisation.
- However, tendu leaf collectors cite The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and the 2013 Supreme Court verdict in the much-touted Niyamgiri case to say private collectors can sell them on their own.
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