Keya Sarkar: Busy bureaucrats

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

Those who read this column would, by now, be familiar with my anecdotes about and at the weekly haat that my friends and I started in Santiniketan in the winter of 2003. Since then the haat, held every Saturday, has not only increased in size (in the number of members who sell and the number of tourist it attracts) but also in importance "" measured purely in terms of the of the mind space it occupies of district level bureaucrats!

We had rather naively started the haat in the forest land bordering Santiniketan with only an oral consent from the forest office situated in Santiniketan. Under the trees and amidst the red soil, it was a dream setting for selling handicrafts, farm products and food. While we were only about ten when we started, we grew to about 75 sellers by the winter of 2006 and most weekend tourists to Santiniketan ensured they reached in time for the Saturday afternoon haat. Little did we know that the idea of the haat had so appealed to an NGO and that it had got funding (reportedly over Rs 1.5 crore) from the UNDP to set up an eco- tourism project which included a haat in partnership with Santiniketan Sriniketan Development Authority (SSDA), chaired by none other than the Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee.

The forest officials who had been witnessing the haat for over three years, suddenly told us in January this year that forest land could not be used for "commercial purposes" and therefore we would not be allowed to hold the weekly haat anymore. A little investigation revealed that since it was felt that the other NGO project (of which only the haat is operational) was actually situated right next to where we held the market, it would not take off unless ours was stopped and so the forest officials had suddenly unearthed these rules from their dusty files.

To anyone who wasn't guilty of setting up a rural haat at a cost, apparently of Rs 1 crore, it would be apparent that for mall-weary city tourists our haat under the trees was a welcome change and the likes of NGOs or, SSDA or UNDP could not provide the same flavour in the little cement huts that they had created to house their haat. Weeks went by as we reasoned with the forest officials (we sit only once a week, light no fire, use no plastic, clean up before we leave etc etc). Tourists swelled at our haat while few went to theirs. Finally realisisng that the forest officials were under instructions to not listen to reason, we approached local panchayat leaders to find a solution.

They allotted us some land adjoining the forest area where our haat used to be. It wasn't as beautiful a setting but beggars can't be choosers and we really appreciated how these panchayat leaders were sufficiently independent thinkers to act beyond the interests of the local powers that be.

Since now the haat provided a livelihood to over a 100 artisans, we decided to get used to the new place and had discussions on how to dress it up. But it was only a few weeks later that the forest officials came up with another strategy. We couldn't take our bicycles through the forest land to reach our new venue. We agreed, thinking it would also make the nouveu riche tourists abandon their Sumos or their Innovas on the road and walk to our haat through the forest.For a few weeks, forest guards were deputed to see that no cycle grazed any tree! But soon the forest office realised this was neither sustainable nor practical as the forest guards went off duty at 5 pm and that is when the haat really came to life.

So, overnight the forest department leased this particular forest area to the Forest Protection Committee (FPC) from the tribal village bordering it. We only got to know when we were parking our cycles and our cycle rickshaws. Members from this village said we had to now pay a parking fee of Re 1 for cycles and Rs 5 for cars.

The means justify the end. If the UNDP project was aimed at increasing rural employment and income, the parking fee just may do the job!