NAC for more powers to dwellers under Forest Act
The NAC now wants the government to change the law to make it more effective and has recommended several amendments, including one to grant the gatherers the right of minor forest produce and access to market.
The advisory body, which was constituted to set the UPA Government’s agenda for the social sector, has also taken note of the dismal performance of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in overseeing implementation the Forest Rights Act, which was intended to undo the historic injustice done to the tribal people and forest dwellers.
The NAC is also upset over the performance of the MoTA on other fronts too, like finalising National Tribal Policy and a law to safeguard the interest of the tribal people or forest dwellers involuntarily displaced due to development projects and lack of proper rehabilitation.
“There is a need for systemic change in the MoTA to make it more effective,” N C Saxena, a member of the NAC, told Deccan Herald on Monday.
Saxena, who is also a member of the NAC’s working group on tribal development, headed a committee that was appointed by the MoTA and Ministry of Environment and Forest to study nationwide implementation of the FRA.
The committee in its December 2010 report observed that the MoTA had failed to get the FRA implemented properly.
“Though the main intention of the FRA was to promote community participation in management of forest, our study shows that community rights over MFPs have been recognised only in negligible cases,” said Saxena.
According to a status report released by the MoTA in August last year, of the 2.9 million claims settled under the FRA, only 1.6 per cent gave community rights and most of those did not include rights over the MFP.
The focus was mostly on giving individual titles for agricultural and residential land. With economic empowerment of tribal communities and forest dwellers its primary objective, the FRA was once seen as a potential tool for the Centre and State Governments to curtail the influence of the Maoists.
“An opportunity to economically empower the tribal communities is being lost,” added Saxena, who also observed that one of the major hurdles in implementation of the FRA had been caused by the way “other traditional forest dwellers” had been defined in the legislation.