‘I now sleep in my own house’: How a forest rights win, viral videos slowed migration from a Chhattisgarh village

Khamdodgi’s sudden online popularity brought tourists and jobs, but the shift was rooted in the rare enforcement of laws that allowed villagers to govern their forests and water bodies.

Aishwarya Mohanty

In the last year, online popularity has increased footfall at Khamdodgi’s picturesque reservoir to 60,000. Aishwarya Mohanty/The Migration Story

KHAMDODGI, Chhattisgarh: On a chilly January morning, the village of Khamdodgi in Chhattisgarh’s Uttar Bastar Kanker district was abuzz with visitors. Cars, scooters and buses made a beeline at the village entrance; men, women and children queued up to buy tickets for bamboo rafting at the reservoir.

Village elders looked on, slightly flummoxed, as they took in the flurry of activity in Khamdodgi, which was once a migration-prone village. But in recent years, it scored a rare win in the fight for forest rights—one that helped villagers revive a decades-old reservoir and launch a rafting business. That, in turn, drew social media influencers, bringing the village viral fame and hordes of tourists.

“We don’t know how so many people found this place. We had tourists before, but the footfall now is beyond our imagination. We haven’t even advertised it as much,” said 60-year-old Pyarsinh Mandawi, a gram sabha leader, as he watched vehicles stream towards the reservoir.

The sudden surge of visitors was the result of a much quieter shift that had taken place years earlier: the granting of community forest rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. The law was meant to give forest-dwelling communities access to forest produce. In practice, however, FRA has been poorly implemented across the country, with only a handful of success stories like Khamdodgi, where communities have persisted and nonprofits have stepped in to help.

Another law, the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), 1996, implemented in Chhattisgarh in 2022, gives gram sabhas, the country’s smallest democratic units, the authority to take decisions on the use and sale of this produce.

Effective implementation of both laws in Khamdodgi, coupled with the village harnessing MGNREGA (the national rural jobs guarantee scheme), helped revive the reservoir and turn it into an ecotourism destination. Villagers told The Migration Story that tourism created enough local employment to slow migration significantly.

Until a few years ago, Shivram Usendi, 36, and a few youths from the village migrated to places like Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for work. But now, their need for employment is being met within the village itself, they said.

Today, Usendi works at the ecotourism site—selling tickets, helping visitors or cleaning. The gram sabha pays the villagers working there and rotates duties among them. It assumed control of the 452-hectare reservoir from the forest department in 2020 after rights were granted.

“The work is regular,” Usendi said. “And at the end of the day, I sleep in my own house.”

BEFORE VIRALITY CAME FOREST RIGHTS

A village of 443 flanked by lush forests and hills, Khamdodgi gained access to 913 hectares of land and forest resources through FRA and PESA. Empowered by these rights, villagers dug ponds along the hill slopes that captured rainwater run-offs, reducing the village’s dependence on the reservoir—and helping to revive it.

This took a few years. Soon after, the reservoir was readied for tourists. Inspired by Dhudmaras, an ecotourism village recognised by U N Tourism for promoting sustainable tourism and rural development, villagers began recreational activities at the reservoir in early 2025. Bamboo sourced from the forest was used to make rafts, and rafting, boating and kayaking were introduced. Picnic spots and trampolines for children followed.

Though the village started a modest Facebook page with nearly 1,000 followers, it was social media influencers who put Khamdodgi firmly on the tourist map. Enthusiastic videos gaga-ing over the village’s pristine beauty went viral, racking up thousands of views (see here and here). Within a year, footfall at the reservoir rose to 60,000, villagers said.

Kunjika Mandawi (centre), surrounded by children (aged 5-12), operates a lifting barrier at a checkpoint near the reservoir's entrance. Aishwarya Mohanty/The Migration Story

“A lot of people who come here now tell us they saw videos on social media or our Facebook page. The rest come through word of mouth,” said Priyanka Komra, 22, who supervises work at the reservoir and assigns duties to fellow villagers.

“The crowd has definitely increased with online popularity. We are overwhelmed and planning other things as well to accommodate such crowds,” she added.

When this reporter visited, Kunjika Mandawi, 21, was operating a lifting barrier at the reservoir’s entrance. With her was a group of children—some as young as five, none older than 12—keeping an eye on tourists and vehicles entering the site.

At a counter a few metres away, Usendi issued tickets for bamboo rafting, boating and picnic spots. “I manage to get work almost every day here,” he said. “It’s either handling the ticket counter, managing the crowd at the boating area, or cleaning.” He earns 300 rupees a day—about 9,000 rupees a month.

By contrast, when Usendi worked in Kerala in 2019, he earned just 7,000 rupees a month. “It’s not about whether we earn more or less,” he said. “It’s about earning enough to support the family while living with it.”

“If I migrate again, I’ll have to pay rent and manage food and other expenses. Why would I do that when I can stay here, eat home-cooked food made with vegetables from my own garden, and earn more too?” he asked.

After returning to Khamdodgi in 2022, Usendi never left again. “We knew we had to make the most of what we had in the village rather than going far away. Those compulsions have come down now,” he said.

Amrit Nag, 38, a member of the Khamdodgi panchayat, told The Migration Story that men didn’t leave the village only to make better livelihoods. “Migration is not rampant in our village, but youth did migrate from here, especially on contract to dig tubewells. For most of them, the idea was not just earning money, which was a compulsion, but also exploring a city outside the village.”

Men had mostly studied till class eight, he added, and most had not finished their education. “There is no scope for them to do office jobs [in cities], only odd jobs to earn minimum wages.”

Usendi, too, had left out of compulsion and curiosity. Though his family owns a one-acre farm on which they cultivate paddy, he wanted to make a better living and see the city. “But migration for us was always temporary and never a fixed thing,” he said, suggesting that his return to the village was inevitable. 

The simple welcome sign at the entrance of the Khamdodgi reservoir. Aishwarya Mohanty/The Migraiton Story

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS COMMUNITY FOREST RIGHTS

Khamdodgi, home to 85 Adivasi households from the Gond and Halba tribes, is in a Schedule V area in southern Chhattisgarh. Until August 9, 2020, villagers here did not have access to the forest or its resources. The land, reservoir and forest produce were all controlled by the forest department.

But in 2017, they led awareness campaigns around the Forest Rights Act, organised by the NGO Navodit and the youth-led organisation Koya Bhoomakaal Kraanti Sena. Their application for community forest rights took five years to clear—with little resistance from the administration—but villagers kept wondering: Would they actually get control of the forest and the reservoir, and be able to generate livelihoods from them? As it turned out, they would.

Before they were granted rights, their livelihoods were restricted to cultivation on small land holdings. They grew paddy, dependent on erratic monsoons, and sold the forest produce that grew on their own lands. A few families told this reporter that they had always earned between 60,000 and 70,000 rupees a year—that is, 5,000–6,000 rupees a month—and that income, too, was often uncertain.

“There were many trees and shrubs we could not monetise back then—mahua, triphala, harda, hehada, amla, ashwagandha and others. Two decades ago, our parents and village elders could sell wood from the forest, but the forest department gradually stopped this,” said Suresh Netan, 31, who works as a cleaner at the reservoir.

Of course, all of this changed when Khamdodgi got its Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR) under the FRA. With CFRR, the gram sabha took control of forest resources, and villagers could protect, manage and earn a living from them. They set up seven self-help groups (SHGs) to support businesses centred on forest produce and create diverse forms of employment. There was an SHG for fishing, another for a tourist catering business and still another to sell custard apple ice cream.

Alongside forest rights, water became the village’s next focus. From 2021, the gram panchayat oversaw the digging of 52 ponds across the forest and on the hill slopes—by the villagers themselves. They did this under MGNREGA or the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, which guarantees wage employment to rural households and empowers gram panchayats to execute public works with state funds.

The ponds created a water-harvesting system in this water-scarce village. Over time, this water conservation stabilised incomes from agriculture to a large extent, and helped replenish the reservoir, which could then be used exclusively for tourism. 

Villagers said that their control over the forest deepened in 2022, with the enactment of PESA in the state. It empowered the gram sabha to manage “common resources” of the forest as per local customs and needs. These included minor water bodies, minor forest produce and minor minerals. So, while CFRR gave Khamdodgi rights over forest resources, PESA enabled the gram sabha to manage them.

“We now have our own governance system for forest produce and water bodies. We have a long list of rules that every individual and family must abide by. For instance, every day, two villagers go on rounds to keep the forest safe from fires and tree-felling. Fires of any kind for any purpose by anyone are strictly prohibited,” Nag said.

DISCOVERING NEW FOREST-BASED LIVELIHOODS

So, FRA, in conjunction with PESA and MGNREGA, opened up the forest to the residents of Khamdodgi, making forest-based livelihoods possible again. 

From early 2025, ecotourism created a whole range of jobs—villagers now work as cleaners, issue tickets, man checkpoints, operate rafts and act as local guides.

Jobs created by eco-tourism include taking visitors on guided tours and operating bamboo rafts at the reservoir. Aishwarya Mohanty/The Migration Story

“The work increases after the monsoon and during the winter months,” said Nag, 38. “Women from practically every home are engaged in the work of the SHGs, so family incomes have also increased.”

Villagers have also set up stalls at the reservoir, where they sell food to tourists. All the income from ecotourism is pooled into the gram sabha, which pays salaries to everyone working at the site. And the surplus is spent on building new rafts, setting up more stalls and the like.

When The Migration Story spoke to Nilesh Mahadev Kshirsagar, District Collector, Uttar Bastar Kanker, he praised Khamdodgi's tourism initiative and said that the village has inspired others nearby to start similar ventures. “The community engagement here is very promising, and our [the state's] role is not to control but to support as the community takes the lead. We have provided mechanised boats and will give tents and cycles to strengthen this initiative.”

He added that “villagers share all expenses transparently on a WhatsApp group, making the system accountable and collective. Through the gram sabha, strong social capital has been generated —and that is perhaps the most powerful outcome of this effort."

But Khamdodgi’s success at governing commons, after asserting its CFRR, stands in contrast to the experience of the law in other parts of India.

A 2024 report by Delhi-based NGO Call for Justice found that FRA’s implementation has been uneven and often, ineffective because of misconceptions about where the law applies, exclusionary practices by local officials, and delays in processing claims.

That said, there are stories of FRA’s successful implementation, some from Chhattisgarh. In Kamepur, for instance, CFRR have given tribal families economic independence—they now collect and sell non-timber forest produce. In Amaad, communities have made the forest more secure and collect more forest produce.

“These rights changed how we thought,” Netan said. “Earlier, the forest was something we feared entering. After CFRR, it became our responsibility.”

With rights came collective decision-making. The first question the village asked itself was: How do we ensure that everyone can live and work here without having to migrate to the cities?

Addressing water scarcity, through the digging of the ponds that would stabilise farm incomes, was the first step. “Water changed everything,” Komra said. “As water availability improved, the village began exploring ways to generate livelihoods without exhausting resources.”

Water harvesting helped reserve the reservoir for ecotourism, which is only a year old now but has got villagers excited about the future. They want to develop Khamdodgi into a bigger— and sustainable—ecotourism destination. “This is just the beginning for us. We want to explore further and add much more to make the reservoir a holistic experience,” Komra said.

FROM COLLECTIVE RIGHTS TO COLLECTIVE INCOMES

Ecotourism was only one of many forest-based livelihoods that villagers developed. A group of 65 youths (38 men and 27 women) formed a youth committee in the gram sabha to manage forest-based livelihoods—collectively.

“Before CFRR, forest-based income was restricted and tightly regulated. After gaining rights, the gram sabha decided that earnings from the forest would flow into a collective pool rather than into individual hands,” Nag told The Migration Story.

First, the villagers together cut and sold the wood of a few Nilgiri trees. “The Nilgiri trees did not serve any purpose, so we sold their wood for 1 lakh rupees. We replanted over 4,000 saplings in their place, including amla, jackfruit, harda, karanj, arjun and neem—and we are taking care of them,” Nag said.

The gram sabha then asked the youth committee to come up with ideas about how to use the money. “It was like we were creating opportunities for ourselves, and all of us got involved with full force,” Komra said.

Village youth have found jobs at the reservoir, like cleaning, and don’t have to migrate to the cities to earn a living. Aishwarya Mohanty/The Migration Story

The youth committee invested this money in bamboo rafts and ecotourism; funded the self-help groups; and bought wedding tents to be shared by villagers. Such collective earnings have helped the gram sabha increase its income by 40 percent in three years. It made 6.7 lakh rupees between 2021 and 2024.

“Hiring wedding tents from other villages used to cost families 65,000–70,000 rupees. By purchasing our own tents, we have reduced the cost to 7,000 rupees. This way, the overall expenditure of families on weddings and other occasions has also gone down gradually,” Komra added.

“What we save is also an earning,” she emphasised. “No one has to borrow money for a wedding anymore.”

The idea of commons extends to social life too. Weddings, festivals and funerals are organised collectively, and each household contributes firewood, patal (leaf plates) and rations to these events. The gram sabha’s committees take turns to manage food and hospitality.

“These practices keep everyone equal,” said Nag. “No one feels burdened, and no one feels left out.”

Despite this collective approach, there are sometimes clashes in the gram sabha, particularly between village elders and youth about the latter’s ideas for new, forest-based enterprises.

“Village elders often have apprehensions about whether a particular idea will land, if it will be able to make profits, and how we will sustain [the enterprise],” said Tupesh Potangi, 26, a member of the youth committee, who manages the reservoir’s daily operations with Komra. “Our ideas are not given a go-ahead immediately.”

Still, the gram sabha meets regularly—at least thrice a month—to discuss such ideas, which often require a good amount of money, Potangi added. “For instance, we [the youth] want to start homestays and guided forest tours in the future, while also maintaining the ecological diversity of the place and keeping our approach sustainable.”

MIGRATION OUT OF CHOICE, NOT COMPULSION  

Through these initiatives, Khamdodgi’s youth want to create a solid foundation for future generations. They hope that, in the years to come, villagers will be able to practise forest- and agriculture-based livelihoods as well as ecotourism with ease, and migrate because they want to, not because they have to.

“We don’t want our children to migrate the way we did. They should go to cities after completing their education for good jobs, not daily-wage work,” said Nag.

Thus, the need to migrate out of distress has been replaced by a vision of mobility driven by choice. The youth wants to build a stable local economy so that the next generation can study, skill up and enter cities with confidence.

“We are working so our children don’t have to leave because of poverty. If they go, it should be because they want to, not because they are forced to,” he concluded.

Edited by Subuhi Jiwani

Aishwarya Mohanty is Special Correspondent with The Migration Story. This story was produced as part of the Promise of Commons Fellowship during which Mohanty will report on the significance of commons and community stewardship.