The latest status report of the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs on the implementation status of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 confirms the general perception that the law has not really benefitted tribal people and other forest dwellers of the country. The report shows that more than half of the total claims filed by the forest dwellers for land titles under FRA have been rejected. What’s more, though the Act has the provision for recognising rights for land parcels of up to 4 ha size to each legitimate claimant, the average size of the land holdings for which titles have been granted under the Act is only 1.4 ha.
The status report, which was released this week, shows that for a total 1,254,456 titles 1.8 million ha of forestland has been distributed so far. The implementation of the Act started in 2007 with the purpose of recognising rights of the forest dwellers over the forest resources they have been traditionally using. However, its implementation has been plagued with various problems, specially the resistance from the forest department in ceding control over the forest resources.
