GUWAHATI
A fact-finding committee formed by Call for Justice, a Delhi-based organisation, has found “mixed” implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 in five States across the country.
The States studied by an eight-member committee, which was headed by retired Delhi High Court judge S.N. Dhingra, are Assam, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Karnataka.
The team assessed two districts in Assam – Dima Hasao and Hailakandi – and found the FRA in its current form does not address the unique situation existing in the northeast concerning shifting or jhum cultivation. This form of cultivation involving slashing and burning plants on hill slopes needs to be recognised as a practice adapted to the ecological and cultural needs of the forest-dwelling communities, the team’s status report made public on Thursday said.
The Dima Hasao district authorities told the team that the FRA has not been implemented in the district while “ambiguity” over categories such as hill tribes in plains and plains tribes in the hills affected the process with regard to Hailakandi district’s Scheduled Tribe communities such as Khasi, Naga, Hmar, and Reang.
“...it was strongly felt that there is an urgent need to de-bureaucratise the forest rights recognition process. In its present form, though the FRA states that the authority to recognise and vest forest rights will be the gram sabha, the real power and authority vests with the district-level committee headed by the Collector or District Magistrate or Deputy Commissioner,” the report said.
In Chhattisgarh, the decision-making process was significantly delayed in Kanker and Korba, the two districts where the team conducted the study. It was not clear why recommendations of the gram sabhas were pending at the sub-divisional level committee for nearly seven years, the report said.
The FRA implementation in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli was found to be satisfactory while the process was not completed in Nashik. “Gadchiroli has become the model district in terms of community forest rights (CFR) but there are serious concerns over the diversion of CFR land for non-forest purposes,” the team’s report said.
The team found “substantial advancement” in the implementation of FRA in Odisha’s Kandhamal and Sundargarh districts. However, it was observed that a significant gap existed in the districts between individual forest rights (IFR) and community forest rights (CFR) claims submitted and eventually recognised. “Besides, there was no time frame followed for taking decisions on the recommendations of the gram sabha. Another substantive issue which needed immediate attention is the fencing of reserved and protected forest selected for compensatory afforestation,” the report said.
In Karnataka, the team visited Ramnagara and Mysuru districts. According to the data of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, only 5.17% of the claims filed for IFR were recognised, which showed Karnataka had the highest rate of IFR claims rejection among the States surveyed.
“It is a matter of concern that even where IFR has been recognised, the actual land allocated on an average is 0.8 acres – too small an area to eke out a livelihood,” the report said.
“Overall, there was inadequate focus on community rights. Various agencies were unclear about the distinction between the two,” the report said, pointing out that the sub-divisional and district-level committees lack the capacity to implement the FRA even after more than 15 years since it came into force.
The committee also found that people categorised as other traditional forest dwellers have been left out of the FRA recognition process.
Apart from Justice (retd.) Dhingra, the members of the fact-finding committee were retired IFS officers V.K. Bahuguna and Pratap Singh Panwar, Chaitram Pawar, Milind Thatte, Kiran Sushma Khoya, K.P. Sinha, and Ritwick Dutta.
