NAC proposes plugging loopholes in Forest Rights Act
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COMMENTS 
The high-level National Advisory Council wants better implementation of the Forest Rights Act to ensure tribals receive their entitlements. But the ministry has rejected its proposals
The National Advisory Council (NAC) has suggested ways to improve and reform the Forest Rights Act that the United Progressive Alliance government introduced in 2006. According to latest reports, though, the tribal affairs ministry has rejected incorporating these suggestions in the law.
The Act, aimed at restoring forestland to tribals and increasing their access to timber and forest produce, gave tribals certain rights that they do not enjoy. In many tribal-dominated states, the dispossession and alienation of tribals is believed to have led to an increase in Maoist activity.
With economic empowerment of tribal communities and forest-dwellers as its primary objective, the FRA was once seen as a potential tool for central and state governments to curtail the influence of the Maoists.
But the law has always been contentious and ambiguous in many aspects. According to a status report released by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) in August last year, of the 2.9 million claims settled under the FRA, only 1.6% offered community rights and most of those did not include rights over minor forest produce (MFP). The focus was mostly on giving individual titles to agricultural and residential land.
The NAC’s working group on tribal matters believes that the Act has been poorly implemented and has many loopholes. It recommended:
- Transparency in the rights recognition process as too many claims were being rejected.
- Arbitrary decisions were being made at the district and lower levels, which should be curbed.
- The Act allows for collective rights over forestland and resources, which is not being implemented. More proactive involvement of the government is required in this and in extending timber rights.
- rimacy of the gram sabha as the quasi-judicial body that makes real decisions must be reinforced. The Act provides for it but the states and Centre have so far been trying to diminish the role of the village council.
The NAC, a high-level advisory body that was constituted to set the UPA government’s agenda for the social sector, also made proposals for improving implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and had forwarded suggestions regarding the Food Security Bill. The government has however not taken these suggestions on board.
Source: Deccan Herald, January 17, 2011
Financial Express, January 11, 2011