SATYAVADI LAXMINARAYANA

ITC has helped to bring nearly 15,460 hectares of wasteland under social forestry benefiting 17,198 poor households in 466 villages.

ITC’s social forestry programme simultaneously addresses the livelihood problems of marginal farmers and the ecological imperative of regenerating biomass and nurturing depleted soils.

In the moisture-stressed districts of Guntur, Nellore, Khammam, Nalgonda and Prakasam in Andhra Pradesh, marginal wasteland owners, who mostly make a living as farm labourers, are often out of work for long stretches.

In an innovative move, linking these farmers’ need for income to the wood fibre needs of its paperboards business, ITC has enabled them to convert their wastelands to pulpwood plantations – a commercially viable land use alternative that can end their marginalisation.

ITC organises wasteland owners into forest user groups who are trained in silviculture, land development and plantation maintenance. Extension services support them with a package of loans and supplies of high-yielding, disease-resistant clonal saplings developed at ITC’s R&D Laboratory at Bhadrachalam.