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Forest Right
Forest Right Act Implementation
Overall impression
Forest Right Campaign has been started in the Year 2008. The intervention was in phase wise. First phase we were basically involved in the massive awareness generation, advocacy with the administration regarding the act itself (like the “residing in issue”) and fill up of the claim forms and submission of the same. Now we are going through II phase of the campaign in which we are basically taking the CFR issue, issues of rejection and new claim for entitlements.
Overall the implementation of the forest right act is not up to the mark. The state government is projecting as if it has covered 100% but this is actually not happened. Till May 2010 No. of claims received by the Gram Sabha 4,91,374 and No. of claim disposed 2,14,918 and 2,71,468 is rejected.
However, regarding the CFR the no. of claims received by the gram sabh is 4042 and claim disposed was 250 which is very less. Nonetheless, we have a government data published in a local newspaper
that in our State there are 12,223 villages which are encroached by the community and ironically the
CFR data shows that only 4042 claims were received and 250 claims have been disposed which is very low coverage. However, the CFR titles given are absolutely baseless. In places where it has been given only 4-6 hectare land has been given whereas according to the act CFR means a lot. However, in the meantime we have taken 8 worksites where we are trying to prepare the claim of CFR till now we have completed 3 CFRs and in the process of getting the working plan, Nistar Patrak and discussion with the local administration.
In between the Ministry of environment and Forest constituted a central committee of 20 members headed by Mr. N. C. Saxena.From 23rd to 28th of May Mr. Saxena visited Chhattisgarh. We had two meetings with him at Dhamtari rest house and Raipur Circuit House. Following findings were shared with him
According to the data of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Govt of India, the state government of Chhattisgarh received 4,86,101 applications by the 31st March 2010, out of which 2,14,633 (44%) claims were accepted and given titles, whereas the rest 2,71,468 (56%) were rejected.
- Lack of action on community rights. As regards community rights, applications have been entertained by and large under section 3(2) of the Act. The state government admitted that almost no action has been taken under sections 3(1) (b to m).
- Many deserving claimants could not file their claims in time, but the village officials and the Forest Rights Committee are not entertaining new claims, under a belief that the last date prescribed by the state government.
- Most rejections have been at the level of gram sabha, based squarely on the report of patwari or Wrong rejections, primarily due to hasty enquiries and lack of a thorough examination of the rejected cases by senior officials forest guard.
- Area mentioned in the title in many cases was less than the area occupied
- Wives’ name has been left out in many cases, although section 4(4) of the Act prescribes that the title should be in joint name.
- National Park cases have not been dealt as per law, and the blanket rejection in such cases that we observed in Bastar was illegal.
- Decision rejecting the applications has not been communicated to the claimant in writing anywhere, with the result that the people have not been able to exercise the right to appeal.
- No priority in practice has been given to PTGs and nomadic tribes, as prescribed in Rule 8(b)
- In 917 villages of Bastar division alone there has been no action because of ‘Maoist occupation’.
- Tribal Development Department in the state, despite being the nodal department, has not been able to provide leadership to the programme.
- As per rule 10, the State Level Monitoring Committee has to devise criteria and indicators for monitoring the process of recognition and vesting of forest rights; and monitor the process of recognition, verification and vesting of forest rights in the State.
- Though the state claims that FRCs, SDLCs, and DLCs have been formed throughout, FRCs are mostly on paper or very inappropriately formed with no involvement of the general village assembly, and SDLCs and DLCs are hardly functional. FRCs are not necessarily aware of their function of assessing claims, many perceive their role to be like a conduit to the SDLC; none appeared to have done their own surveys or enquiries before sending the cases to Sub-divisional level committee.
- Where the FRC process and claims filing has taken place, there is a serious problem obtaining evidence for 75 years occupation/use; such evidence is likely to exist only with the Forest Dept which is not able to (or not pro-actively willing to) dig it up.
- The Forest Departments seem ill-prepared for the post FRA scenario and their future role in management of these areas; not much internal discussion has taken place on this.
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