Forest Bill courts controversy

The revised forest dwellers Bill is unlikely to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament.

Published on: Jul 3, 2006, 03:30:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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It’s the green brigade on one side and forest dwellers on the other. And caught in between is a Bill that seeks to give powers to tribals who have been living in and around forests for years, possibly centuries.

The revised forest dwellers Bill is unlikely to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament, beginning July 24. The question now is who will introduce the Bill in Parliament. The Tribal Affairs Ministry says that with the revised Bill including the right of forest dwellers, it does not have the mandate to introduce the bill as it deals with tribals, not forest dwellers. That, they say, is the Environment and Forest Ministry’s domain.

The Forest Ministry has never been keen on the bill. Their stand -- also the environmentalists’ -- is that giving forest dwellers such powers will sound the death knell of forests. Sources say the issue will now be decided by a group of ministers headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee. “The matter has not been sorted out as the two ministries will present their case before the GoM, slated to meet sometime in July,” a government official said.

The Tribal Affairs Ministry and the Environment Ministry have never agreed on the Bill. While the former wanted the interests of tribals to be protected in the bill, the environment ministry felt giving tribals absolute rights would jeopardise conservation efforts.

Matters had reached such a head that a meeting was called at the Prime Minister’s Office last year to sort out the issue. It was then decided that national parks and sanctuaries would be exempted from the Bill.

The Bill was introduced in Parliament in December 2005 and was referred to Joint Parliamentary Committee. The committee submitted its report in the budget session and recommended a large number of changes in Tribal Bill, converting it into a Forest Dwellers Rights Bill.

Both the Environment Ministry and conservationists were again up in the arms against the Parliamentary panel report. “The recommendations will result in the death of forests and the wildlife. Overriding powers have been granted to gram sabha for protecting rights of forest dwellers without any accountability. Only forest mafia will gain from the revised bill,” said PK Sen, former Director of Project Tiger.

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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