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  • 14/12/1998

The Ballarpur Paper Mills belonging to the Thapar group of companies for a long time had monopoly of bhabber which is raw material for paper pulp. An area of forest was leased out to them for havesting bhabber. After the formation of Hill Resources Management Society (HRMS), the mill had to buy bhabber from the society, as the forest was leased directly to the villagers. The price of bhabber consequently went up to more than Rs 100 a quintet. Since last year, however. The Ballarpur Paper Mills, which used to buy about 80 per cent of the bhabber, changed its raw material to wood, leaving the villagers high and dry. The Panwi Paper Mill in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, now remains the sole buyer at bhabbar from Sukhomajri.

When the mill had a direct lease they used to fix a target for its employees responsible for extraction of bhabber who in turn extracted more than the target amount of bhabber and sold the rest to the villagers at a high price. "The employee used to earn around Rs 10,000-15.000 illegally this way," alleges Hari Kishan of Sukhornairi. Now, with the HRMS controlling the bhabber lease, the mill has lost direct influence on its production. Also, the HRMS has come out with different price structure: Rs 110 to Rs 150 per quintal of good quality bhabber and Rs 95 per quintal for relatively poor quality bhabber.

With the demand coming down and HRMS not agreeing to reduce the price of bhabber, many villages have not been able to auction their bhabber. In Sukhomajri and Dhamala, they are yet to decide on the auction of the disputed 4004-hectare (ha) common forest. Villagers estimate that the forest would fetch hardly Rs 1.5 lakh this year of which the Dhamala side would get the lion's share of 70 per cent as their side of the divided forest has more concentration of bhabber Sukhomeld's residents allege that the Parrivi Paper Mill is trying to manipulate the contractors for less auction money. :s it is now the sole buyer of bhabber, the mill is not giving more money to the contractors who on the other hand are not ready to give more money for the lease, says a forest official. It might be difficult for the HRMS to maintain the price line since the lone buyer is now well placed to bring down the price of bhabber.The paper mills have shown no foresight to encourage the villagers to maintain their raw material supply. Yet at the national level they keep crying all the time that there is a shortage of raw material. Shortsighted and greedy industrialists indeed!

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