Chandrapur and Gadchiroli are twin districts in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, contiguous with Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. They are situated on the eastern end of the state at a distance of a thousand kilometers from Mumbai – the state capital.
Chandrapur is among the top ten industrialized districts out of the state’s thrity-five. It has a well-established coal industry, a thermal power station, cement factories, and limestone quarries. India’s largest paper-producer the Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) is based here. Yet these industries have not solved the livelihood issues of the rural people. The main livelihood is farming and related activities. Farmers who cultivate forest land for sustenance are termed as ‘encroachers’ and face eviction threats at the hands of the forest department. Across the district people produce rice, cotton, soyabean, chillies, tomatoes, pulses and some vegetables. Like in most places of India, the land distribution is skewed. Small land holdings and the underdeveloped irrigation facilities leaves a large section of the population at the mercy of the monsoon and the government’s Employment Guarantee programs for unskilled manual labour to keep their bodies and souls together.
Gadchiroli was carved out of Chandrapur in 1982. It is one of the poorest districts in India, starved of industries and infrastructure development. It has the largest forest cover in Maharashtra – 76% of the district’s land is with the forest department. Yet there are no forest-based industries. It is also the source of two major raw materials – bamboo and tendu leaves, which feed the paper industry and the bidi industry in this part of the country. The main crop is rice and the tribals depend on the bamboo cutting and tendu leaf-gathering seasons for extra income.
The population has a large percentage of tribes, mainly Gond, Pardhan, Kolam and Madiya. Rajura, Jivti, and Korpana blocks of Chandrapur where the Kolams live and the Etapalli, Bhamragad and Sironcha blocks in Gadchiroli, which are home to the Madiyas are the areas of maximum impoverishment. The Kolam and the Madiya tribes are included in the category of Primitive Tribal Groups by the central government. The Gond and Pardhan tribes are scattered across the length and breadth of the two districts.
In recent times Vidarbha has been in news because of severe drought leading to suicides by debt-ridden farmers, malnutrition and starvation in tribal children, and injustice towards Vidarbha region in the state’s budgetary allocations. Both districts are overshadowed by the activities of the ultra-leftist Naxalite groups; though Gadchiroli is more a zone of active violence than Chandrapur. The tribals in Gadchiroli are trying hard to change the insecure situation brought about by the circle of attacks and counter-attacks between the Naxalites and the police force, restore security and hope in their lives.
Chandrapur is among the top ten industrialized districts out of the state’s thrity-five. It has a well-established coal industry, a thermal power station, cement factories, and limestone quarries. India’s largest paper-producer the Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) is based here. Yet these industries have not solved the livelihood issues of the rural people. The main livelihood is farming and related activities. Farmers who cultivate forest land for sustenance are termed as ‘encroachers’ and face eviction threats at the hands of the forest department. Across the district people produce rice, cotton, soyabean, chillies, tomatoes, pulses and some vegetables. Like in most places of India, the land distribution is skewed. Small land holdings and the underdeveloped irrigation facilities leaves a large section of the population at the mercy of the monsoon and the government’s Employment Guarantee programs for unskilled manual labour to keep their bodies and souls together.
Gadchiroli was carved out of Chandrapur in 1982. It is one of the poorest districts in India, starved of industries and infrastructure development. It has the largest forest cover in Maharashtra – 76% of the district’s land is with the forest department. Yet there are no forest-based industries. It is also the source of two major raw materials – bamboo and tendu leaves, which feed the paper industry and the bidi industry in this part of the country. The main crop is rice and the tribals depend on the bamboo cutting and tendu leaf-gathering seasons for extra income.
The population has a large percentage of tribes, mainly Gond, Pardhan, Kolam and Madiya. Rajura, Jivti, and Korpana blocks of Chandrapur where the Kolams live and the Etapalli, Bhamragad and Sironcha blocks in Gadchiroli, which are home to the Madiyas are the areas of maximum impoverishment. The Kolam and the Madiya tribes are included in the category of Primitive Tribal Groups by the central government. The Gond and Pardhan tribes are scattered across the length and breadth of the two districts.
In recent times Vidarbha has been in news because of severe drought leading to suicides by debt-ridden farmers, malnutrition and starvation in tribal children, and injustice towards Vidarbha region in the state’s budgetary allocations. Both districts are overshadowed by the activities of the ultra-leftist Naxalite groups; though Gadchiroli is more a zone of active violence than Chandrapur. The tribals in Gadchiroli are trying hard to change the insecure situation brought about by the circle of attacks and counter-attacks between the Naxalites and the police force, restore security and hope in their lives.
