New law can harm ecology

But Govt has chosen to remain silent on the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Nov 24, 2006, 17:58:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Tribal forest dwellers may be upbeat, but the ministry of Forest and Environment has chosen to remain silent on the National Forest Commission's comments on the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill.

The Commission said the Bill would be harmful to the interest of the forest and the country's ecology. The panel said encroachment at the rate of 3.60 lakh acres (per annum) has already been removed and the state governments could appoint commissions, headed by a judge, to look into the claims which have not been settled, and it should not be left to the gram sabha to act as the arbiter as stated in the Bill.

In its comments on the commission's recommendations submitted to the Prime Minister's Office, the ministry has been silent on the recommendations 340-345 of the tribal rights bill. "The government ministry is looking into it,” an official explained.

The ministry's neutral stand has helped the Group of Ministers headed by Foreign Minister Pranab Mukerjee to end the stalemate on the recommendations of the Joint Parliamentary Committee's report on the Tribal Bill. “The GoM has agreed to the dilutions suggested by the Tribal Affairs ministry in the JPC report,” said an environment ministry official.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee had recommended that the rights of the forest dwellers, irrespective of whether they are tribal or not, should be recognised. It suggested that the cut-off date to recognise rights should be December 2005 and not October 1980, as stated in the original bill, and the gram sabha should be vested with the power to decide.

But the government does not see eye-to-eye with the JPC. There are a few areas where they differ. The GoM has recommended that only rights of tribals would be recognised and the cut-off date could not be December 2005.

But in a breather to forest dwellers, the GoM recommended financial compensation for relocation, apart from land in lieu of that taken over by the state government. The group of ministers also suggested that all parties should be taken into confidence before rehabilitation. The Tribal Affairs ministry is drafting a new Bill based on GoM recommendations to table in the Cabinet. The legislation is likely to be introduced in the winter session.

The Left Parties and conservation lobby might oppose the Bill. CPI-M politburo member Brinda Karat has been demanding that the JPC report should be accepted in totality. "There is no scope for dilution," she said. PK Sen, former director of Project Tiger, accused politicians of trying to grab forest land by selling plots to tribals and then "transferring them illegally".

"I am sure that the Tribal Rights law will result in devastation of forests as politicians will reap the benefit of their claim to forest land," he said. Vandana Shiva of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, however, takes a middle path. "The government should try to strike a balance between tribal rights and conservation. Both the necessary to save India's huge biodiversity."

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan @hindustantimes.com

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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