Livelihood and the land

The degradation of land in the area has been taking place for many decades. With the coal mines in the adjacent Jharia coalfield from over a century ago, and the steel plant since the last fifty years, the gentle undulating terrain which once was covered with dense forest has been greatly denuded. Now the bare uplands which are exposed to monsoon rain have lost much of the top soil and have become barren.

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During the last couple of decades JCMB has initiated several activities to tackle this problem.

• Planting fodder and fuel giving trees, herbal medicinal plants on barren uplands belonging to poor and marginal farmers

• Digging small and shallow pits in the undulating land to conserve rain water.

• Desilting irrigation ponds which were dug by previous generations.

• Propagation of SRI method of rice cultivation and use of indigenous varieties of seeds