Every morning, people from various villages – most of them from Adivasi and Dalit communities – come to Manikpur railway junction in Chitrakoot district of Uttar Pradesh. They come by shared jeeps and auto-rickshaws, or by bicycles, from villages in a 100-kilometre radius. Carrying hundreds of bundles of firewood – each weighing between 20 and 50 kilos – from the Patha forests on border of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Selling these in nearby markets is a stable source of income for the families. Though laws related to the preservation of trees debar tree-cutting, the local communities who depend on selling firewood have little or no productive land. Their only other regular source of income is daily wages at construction sites in nearby towns.
They take the bundles of wood – mainly of the tendu and palash tree –by passenger trains from Manikpur, from Karwi (around 30 kilometres from Manikpur), or from Shankargarh, around 80 kilometres away, to various towns along the train route to Allahabad.
At the end of the day, they earn between Rs. 150-300, depending on the dryness and quality of the firewood, and the season's demand for fuel.
Cutting wood, which will later be taken to the Manikpur railway junction and other stations, and then to markets in various towns along the train route
Women crossing the sluice gate of a dam, carrying their daily load of firewood
Crossing
a tributary of the Mandakini river after collecting wood from the nearby forest
Carrying
the heavy loads of firewood across rivers, roads and railways
Waiting
to load the firewood on the train at Shankargarh station
The train approaches the town of Chitrakoot Dham (Karwi), where some will get off to sell the logs
Unloading the huge bundles one by one when the train stops at Jasra
Exhausted, returning from the daily chaos of survival. Selling firewood barely brings Rs. 100-300 a day, depending on quality, weather and demand
No names have been used in this story because the firewood-sellers didn’t want to be named.
