India - Common Property Resources and Village Facilities, January - June 1998, NSS 54th Round

Reserved forests are constituted under the Indian Forest Act or other forest laws of the states. The government holds absolute rights of ownership in reserved forests. The products of a reserved forest are not to be used by the locals unless specifically permitted by way of grant of privilege and not as a matter of right. Access to these forests is generally restricted. For this survey, all forests declared as wild life or game sanctuary or national park will be treated as reserved forests.

Items 8.1 to 8.3 & 8.9 provide for recording the area of forest land within the boundary of the village and right of local use of forest land and forest produce. By legal status, forests in India are classified in the following three categories: Reserved forests, Protected forests and Unclassed forests. In this item, information on area and right of use will be collected for each of these categories.

For each category of forests, area of land falling within the boundary of the sample village will be recorded in hectares in two places of decimal. Care should be taken to ensure that entries made are actually given in two places of decimal. For example, if the area reported is 50 hectares, the entry should be "50.00" and not just "50". If there is no forest of a particular category, record "0.00" in the corresponding cell. No cell of this column may be left blank. The total of entries (area) in Items 8.1 to 8.3 will be recorded in Item 8.9.