The Wayanad district administration is gearing up to expedite measures to provide possession certificates to landless tribal families under the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
A team of Revenue department officials led by Wayanad District Collector A. Geetha on Wednesday visited Kakkery and Nedumthana, two remote hamlets of Kattuanayakka and Paniya tribes in Thirunelly grama panchayat, as a part of expediting measures to provide possession certificates to 111 landless tribal families.
The tribesmen of the hamlets shared their concerns over the lack of possession certificates to Ms. Geetha.
They said they were denied many benefits due to the lack of certificates.
Ms. Geetha assured them that their issues relating to the possession certificate would be resolved in two months. The tribespeople also brought their issues such as increasing wildlife attacks in the area, lack of facilities to continue the education of their children, and the alleged negligence of government officials to grant compensation for the destruction of their houses in the last monsoon. According to the available data with the Tribal Welfare Department, 8,255 landless tribal families in the district had applied for land under the Forest Rights Act since 2006, of which 4,541 families got possession certificates.
The forest rights committees in tribal settlements rejected the application of 3,074 tribal families owing to various reasons.
According to the data, 413 applications were under process and the remaining applications were still pending.
