The article attempts to highlight the colonial commercial forest policy vis-à-vis tribal private forests in the Kalrayan hills of Salem and Baramahal region of Madras Presidency during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (1792-1881). Further, it analyses the different strategies employed by the colonial government to encroach upon private forests, disregarding the traditional rights of the tribals. It concludes that the British administration intruded into tribal areas merely to bring the abundant forest resources under its sole control to further commercial interests, and not to protect them from the contractors or preserve the environment.