PMO wants quick execution of forest rights

The PMO has asked the Tribal Affairs ministry to speed up the implementation of Forest Rights law, touted as a landmark legislation by the UPA Govt.

Updated on: Jun 24, 2008, 03:19:10 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In the season of political uncertainty over nuclear deal, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has asked the Tribal Affairs ministry to speed up the implementation of Forest Rights law, touted as a landmark legislation by the UPA government.

In a report to the PMO, the Tribal Affairs ministry has said Congress-ruled states like Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Maharashtra have been slow to act and have constituted only state and district level committees, the first step to implement the Act.

On the other hand, the NDA-ruled states like Gujarat had Chhattisgarh have conducted gram sabha meetings to identify the beneficiaries. “In some cases land rights have also been awarded,” an official said. Orissa, another NDA-ruled state with high tribal population, has asked the sub-divisional offices to submit monthly progress reports to the CM’s office.

Tribal Affairs minister P.R. Kyndiah has called a meeting of state tribal affairs ministers to review the Act’s implementation, the first after the law was notified on January 1, 2008. “We will tell states to work earnestly to provide benefits to tribals and forest dwellers,” the minister recently told HT.

The government’s wish to give land to maximum claimants before the next general election may run into rough weather with the Environment Ministry insisting that it needs to approve any diversion of forestland. The Environment Ministry has asked the Tribal Affairs Ministry to inform states that its permission is necessary to give forestland to the claimants.

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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