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The secretary of the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste Development Department wrote to chairpersons of all district level committees (DLCs) for implementing Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA).
In letters dated August 4, the secretary drew their attention towards the concern expressed by the Odisha Revenue & Disaster Management minister Maheswar Mohanty over “the slow progress in respect of demarcation of the forest land vested with the claimants, correction of RoR (Record of Rights) & Maps and disposal of all the rejected forest rights claims by treating those as suo-motto appeals at the level of SDLCs &DLCs.”
Referring to a state government’s letter from June 16, 2016, the ST/SC department says that all the rejected or modified claims were to be treated as suo-motto appeals at the next higher level of sub-district level committees (SDLCs) and DLCs.
Based on the district-wise data on rejected claims, demarcation and RoR correction of the titles, the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste Development Department letter points out that out of 1,49,489 claims rejected, only 7,117 (4.76 per cent)have been disposed.
“Only 1,90,542 titles have been demarcated and 49,906 RoR corrections have been made against the 4,12,697 titles distributed till 30.6.2017 which constitute 46% and 12% respectively,” it further states.