The Hindu : New Delhi News : Bid to dilute Forest Act: NGO

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Wednesday, Sep 26, 2007
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New Delhi

Bid to dilute Forest Act: NGO

Special Correspondent

“We now know that the PMO wants the law to be unimplementable”

NEW DELHI: The Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a network of voluntary organisations working for forest dwellers, has said that the government was drafting rules that would render impossible implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006.

Addressing a press conference here to announce a ‘court arrest’ programme on October 2 to demand notification of the Rules and the Act, activists from across the country said thousands of families had been evicted from forest areas in the name of the Act even though the rules were yet to be notified. Eviction in Rajasthan was being done in the name of seizing forest land for biodiesel plantation; the Chhattisgarh government was using the ‘State-sponsored militia’ to “cleanse” the forest of people, and the armed police in Orissa continued their stand-off with villagers fighting eviction by Posco. The situation was worse in Jharkhand, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, where evictions had started but no compensation was being given, the activists said.

Shankar Gopalakrishnan of the Campaign said framing of the rules was being delayed at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office to “hold up” the Act. “We now know that the PMO wants the law to be unimplementable.”

The two important changes it suggested were that a claimant should be a resident of a forest, instead of being dependent on it for livelihood as had been suggested by the experts group set up to draft the rules.

“This would automatically eliminate 98 per cent of the forest dwellers. Another thing is expanding the scope of the Gram Sabha by including more number of villages in a sabha that would make it virtually impossible to meet as the number would run into thousands. Since the process starts with the Gram Sabha meeting, the entire purpose of the Act would be defeated,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. Moves were also afoot to hastily declare areas “critical wildlife habitats” without a proper procedure under a special provision under the Act and to relocate the people for which a package consisting essentially of cash compensation would be provided. More than Rs. 1,000 crore was allocated for the purpose next year, he said.

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