A committee report has stated that the Forest Rights Act, one of the flagship programmes of the UPA government and crucial to tribal rights in India has gaping holes in its implementation.
The Forest Rights Act (FRA) recognises the rights of forest-dwellers over land they have been cultivating or residing on prior to December 2005, as also rights to use, manage, and protect forest resources. Promulgated in 2006 and operationalised with a set of Rules in January 2008, the FRA has only just begun to reach its intended beneficiaries.
According to the report, the relaxed attitude of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) is to be blamed for the improper execution of the law.
An eight-month investigation across 17 states by a committee set up jointly by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, has pointed out gaping holes in implementation.
It has strongly recommended independent oversight of the process, involvement of civil society at all levels, and a national council that could boost implementation to levels that will make a real difference on the ground.
The systemic faults identified by the Committee are serious enough to bedevil implementation for years to come, unless corrective action is taken.
State-level monitoring committees, while established in most states, have hardly functioned. The other empowered institutions set up under the FRA, district- and subdivisional-level committees, have often been improperly constituted, and have allowed forest officials to have an illegitimately dominant say in decisions. At the ground level, Forest Rights Committees set up at the village level have often been only on paper, improperly constituted, or run under the influence of government officials.
The result of these and other systemic weaknesses is very poor or slow implementation. According to MoTA, about 30 lakh claims have been made, of which over 80% have been disposed of, and about 35% accepted for titles. This implies a high rate of rejections. Claims have been rejected en masse in many states, or drastically reduced in area even where accepted.
For several hundred million people, secure access to forest produce would be a crucial boost to livelihood security.