Managing of Common Property Resources by Gramma Panchayat: A Case Study

Abstract

"In the rural areas poor people depend on certain common property resources CPRs for their critical needs. Some of the CPRs available in rural areas are grazing lands, forest land, common land, irrigation tanks and ponds etc. 'Common property resource' or 'Common pool resource' refers to a property right regime that allows for some collective body to devise schemes to exclude others, thereby allowing the capture of future benefit streams; and 'open- access' implies that nobody owns. The approach at the other extreme adopts a much more stringent view to distinguish between common property and 'free or open access' resources. The major findings of the enquiry on common property resources are summarized in this chapter. It starts with the survey estimates on magnitude of common property land resources while comparing them with the estimates available from various other studies."