Common Property Resources and Village Facilities, January - June 1998

NSS 54th Round

Two approaches are to be followed for collection of data on CPR. For the size of CPR, information will be collected only for the CPRs within the boundary of the village which are formally (i.e. by legal sanction or official assignment) held by village panchayat or a community of the village. These will be henceforth referred to as CPRs in de jure sense. For data on collections from CPRs, the coverage of CPR is extended to include CPRs held, whether formally or nominally, by the panchayat or a community of the village. It will also include resources which are de facto used as common resources like revenue land not assigned to the panchayat or any other community, degraded forest land, or even private land in use of the community by convention. The common use of private property may be confined to particular seasons like cultivated land between crops, submerged fields used for fishing, etc.

Besides information on CPRs this schedule is also meant for collecting data on availability of various facilities in the village. The schedule consists of the following blocks.

Block 0: Descriptive identification of sample village.
Block 1: Identification of sample village.
Block 2: Particulars of field operations.
Block 3: Availability of various facilities.
Block 4: Particulars of common land in the village and nearby forest.
Block 5: Particulars of common water resources in the village.
Block 6: Particulars of collection from forest and other common village land (commons).

COVERAGE OF COMMON PROPERTY LAND RECOURCES (COMMONS) IN DE JURE AND DE FACTO APPROACHES

In the de jure approach, the common property land resources will be understood as all, which are used as common land and are under the formal (i.e. by legal sanction or official assignment) control of the village panchayat or a community of the village. Thus, de jure CPR land will include all permanent pasture & grazing land, village forest & woodlots, common threshing grounds, dumping grounds and village sites. In addition, it will also include all other land of a government department which are formally held by the panchayat or a community of the village.

Within a village there are also other types of common land. These are classified by land use as barren and uncultivable land, long fallow, cultivable waste and area under non-agricultural use. All these categories of land are owned by the government, except where the ownership is otherwise defined. These land are administered by the revenue departments. In de facto sense, these categories of land also belong to village communities, as the local people has usufructuary rights over them. Usually, these are nominally held by the village panchayat. Again, vasted lands, i.e. those declared surplus under the land ceiling and state acquisition (zamindari abolition) acts, are nominally held by the village panchayat, and often used like any other common land in the village. Thus, these categories of land will be treated as de facto CPR land.

All land owned by the households or held by them on long-term lease of 30 years or more will not be considered as CPR, unless such privately owned or held land are pooled and used as a common resource. Land under institutions like schools, medical centres, hospitals, and all other land for non-agricultural uses (by standard classification) will, however, be excluded. But land under a water body, if for common use, will be included in de facto CPR land. Moreover, collection of leaves, fuelwood, etc. from the road-side trees will also be included.