About Us
Vikalp Social Organisation was formed in 1979, in Saharanpur city of Uttar Pradesh as an institutional response to dealing with the groundwork going on to engage/respond to the political and social disarray due to the then socio-political turmoil in the country. It was registered as a society in 1982 and got registered under FCRA in 1985.
The organisation works with primary producers/gatherers to establish their rights over forest resources and habitats to build up vibrant, equitable, sustainable women-led community-governed institutions over forested terrains. These producers/gatherers include OTFDs (Other Traditional Forest Dwellers), Adivasis, pastoralists and disenfranchised Taungya/forest village communities
Vikalp has beeninstrumental in organising forest dependent Dalit communities residing in “haqdari villages” in the foothills of the Shivaliks to get their rights over Bhabar grass and form cooperative to sell value added products from the grass across the country (1984-1994).
Currently, the organisation is providing resource group support for the CFR (Community Forest Resource) filing and rights recognition work in five districts of Uttar Pradesh, one district each in Bihar, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh. It is doing in depth scoping work in Sunderbans (mangrove forest), Adivasi dominated tropical forests regions of West Bengal (Midnapur, Jhargram, Bankura and Purulia districts) and Himalayan/Sub-Himalayan areas of West Bengal (Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Kalimpong and Darjeeling districts).
Vision
To help ideate, facilitate an effective change in forest governance and a coordination of two major Natural Resource based communities – forest dependent and fisheries dependent – with effective control over the forest and fishery resources they have been historically custodians of.