How Wonderful is the Wonder crop? Block Rubber Plantation and Indigenous tribal women in Tripura

This research paper intends to study the Block Planting Scheme of Rubber Board and Government of Tripura, and its impact on the indigenous tribal women beneficiaries. Block Planting Scheme of rubber in Tripura has been implemented to rehabilitate the Tribal communities and it encourages communities to shift from jhum cultivation to settled form of agriculture. The study attempts to examine how women have benefited from Block Planting scheme and what are the cultural and social changes brought about in the context of tribal communities after adopted the new form of livelihoods. The BPS was started in 1991 at the time of economic liberalisation of India. The study attempts to examine the scheme and particularly the important role of the Rubber Board, how the scheme fits into the whole sustainable livelihoods framework and if the scheme has the potential to provide a sustainable livelihood for the tribal communities in Tripura. The study suggest that while the income of beneficiaries of Block Planting Scheme have raised significantly and brought development in the village, in terms of better infrastructure and access to basic facilities, the flip side of development is lose of common community land, lose of biodiversity, an emerging class of landless, rubber becoming a men’s crop and women’s withdrawal from work outside the household.