Forest Act to be launched on January 1

The controversial Forest Act to give land rights to tribals and forest dwellers will be applicable from January 1, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 8, 2007, 03:26:14 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The controversial Forest Act to give land rights to tribals and forest dwellers will be applicable from January 1.

At a glance

• The Forest Rights Act rules give powers to the gram sabhas in identifying rights of the tribals and forest dwellers.

• The gram sabhas along with the district administration will have powers to give forest rights and allocate land to the beneficiaries.

It was announced after CPM members contended that the delay in the implementation of the bill has led to eviction of tribals from their homes in many states. CPM member Brinda Karat had said that through the law was passed about a year ago, rules to implement the Act has not been notified yet.

The Forest Rights Act rules, which were to be notified on October 2, were held back after the Environment Ministry opposed it. The ministry had asked the Tribal Affairs Ministry (TAM) to relocate all people living within critical areas in the wildlife sanctuaries and parks before notifying the rules.

The TAM replied that the condition is "very" difficult to implement. There are over a million people residing in the critical wildlife areas and "relocating them would take years, bringing injustice to crores of tribals," says a government official.

A settlement has now been reached between the two ministries under which, the forest dwellers in parks and sanctuaries will be relocated out of the critical areas within a limited timeframe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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