It is a part of Chhotonagpur plateau situated in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh. Our focus on Jangalmahal is covering four districts of West Bengal. These are- Purulia, Bankura,West Medinipur and Birbhum. These districts are also drought-prone in nature.
Published in Chapter:
Convergence of Forest Resources in Jangalmahal, West Bengal
Nilendu Chatterjee (Rabindra Bharati University, India) and Soumyananda Dinda (The University of Burdwan, India)
Copyright: © 2016
|Pages: 27
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0215-9.ch022
Abstract
The topic of growth and convergence is at the heart of a wide-ranging debate in the growth literature. The century long history of deprivation and backwardness of Jangalmahal area and four districts of it in the state of West Bengal—Purulia, Bankura, West Midnapore and parts of Birbhum—is also a well discussed issue. The dependency of the people on forest products to earn livelihoods is a natural phenomenon which, over the years, has resulted in considerable exploitation of forest resources. Through this chapter, we have made an attempt to see whether there exists any convergence, both absolute as well as conditional, in the total forest product of Jangalmahal and in the incomes earned from forest resources. We have seen the presence of Beta convergence, both conditional and absolute, in both tests of forest products as well as income from it. Sigma of forest income diverges instead of converge. Similar result is seen in case of timber.