In January this year Darangi Bhera Sarubhai, a resident of Khedasan village in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district, received a notice informing him that his Individual Forest Rights (IFR) claim had been rejected.
The 70-year-old was one of 30 individuals from Khedasan, a Schedule V village, whose claims were rejected on the grounds that their possession of the land could not be verified via satellite imagery. The notice sent tremors through villages in the district, several of whom have pending IFR claims.