Govt relax norms; lakhs of tribals can now claim forest land

Thousands of tribals living in forests across will now be able to claim land as Tribal Affairs ministry on Thursday relaxed norms in a bid to thwart attempt of forest department official to reject the claims.

Updated on: Jul 13, 2012, 24:27:56 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Thousands of tribals living in forests across will now be able to claim land as Tribal Affairs ministry on Thursday relaxed norms in a bid to thwart attempt of forest department official to reject the claims.

As per the new rules notified under the Forest Rights Act, the ministry had allowed tribal and forest dwellers to submit all available evidence to claim land in forest areas. The forest department officials had rejected lakhs of land claims in states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra on the ground that their names were not in their official records.

Tribal affairs minister Kishore Chandra Deo said the new rules governing the Forest Rights Act (FRA) for empowering Scheduled Tribes have been finalised and will be put before Parliament in the first week of Monsoon session, which begins from August 7. “We have introduced 60 changes in the present act after taking into account various factors," he said.

Another notable change is making the tribal and forest dwellers control the minor forest produce, which till now have been under the control of the state governments. The new rules directs the state governments to allow those living in forests to collect the minor forest produce (which is everything except timber) and stipulate a minimum support price to buy the produce from them.

Deo said the MSP for minor forest produce will be declared by January next year.

For the first time, seven villages in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra were allowed to collect and sell bamboo resulting in earning of Rs 7.5 crore. But, the scheme was not extended to other villages because the forest department refused to permit to transport the bamboo harvested. The forest dwellers will be able to easily access minor forest produce if the states accept the new rules.

The new rules also provide for community based forest management, a right which was taken away from them by the British through Indian Forest Act of 1927. The rules describe gram sabhas (village body) as the supreme authority on management of local forests “without any conditions”.

It also makes it mandatory for project proponents to seek approval of the gram sabha for any developmental projects. “No forest land could be taken over for projects unless the rights of the forest dwellers have been recognized and gram sabha approves the project,” a tribal affairs ministry official said.

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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