Access to Common Property Resources and Livelihood Dependence among the Dalits of Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

Common Property Resources (CPRs) accessible to collectively owned/held/managed by an identifiable community and on which no individual has exclusive property rights are called common property resources. This results that co-users of the resources are a well-defined group of persons. The proponents of this approach hold that “a resource becomes common property only when the group of people who have the right to its collective use is well defined, and the rules that govern their use of it are set out clearly and followed universally”. In general those people who are depending on Farming or doing Labour are more likely to dependent on Common Property Resources as CPR constitute major income source and generated livelihoods in the forms of fuel wood, medicinal plant, use of common grazing land for cattle and pets, getting access to fallow or barren land. Self-employed, business and Govt. employee class of people in general do not depend on CPR for their day to day livelihoods as their economy is largely not depends on it. Occupation of respondents is directly related with CPR use and access. CPR owned or held by an individual or a family or an organization like a company or corporation or co-operative institution is not being considered as CPRs. This study was carried out in 5 blocks namely Oddanchatram, Reddiyarchatrm, Dindigul, Sanarpatti and Vadamadurai. These blocks were identified based on the high level of CPR present over there. From each of the above mentioned identified block 5 village Panchayats have been selected. The required data was collected from 1000 rural Dalits households with the help of a pre-tested interview schedule prepared exclusively for this purpose. To understand the nature of the data, firstly, frequency tables were prepared, and subsequently the analysis and tabulation have been carried out using research techniques based on the requirement.