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States urged to implement law on tribals’ rights

Staff Reporter

PALAKKAD: Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member and MP Brinda Karat urged State governments on Tuesday to implement the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, that came into force on January 1, 2008.

Inaugurating a meeting of tribal women organised by the Democratic Women’s Association at Attappady, the CPI(M) leader described the Act as a historic law that gave equal right over forest land to tribal men and women.

Many laws on tribal land passed by State governments and the Centre were not implemented and a large number of tribals did not have rights over their forest land.

In fact, the entire forest belonged to the tribals, she said. They only collected forest produce for their survival. Large areas of the forest were destroyed by the timber and land mafia, who snatched tribals’ land. In many States, the tribals did not have documents to prove ownership of the land on which they had been living for generations. The new law was brought to give them the right over forest land.

When the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came to power at the Centre in 2004, the CPI(M) and other parties launched an agitation seeking this right, Ms. Karat said.

The demand was included in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) and it was decided that the tribals would be given ownership document for the forest land they lived on and cultivated.

Under the new law, non-tribals living close to the forest for three generations or more would also get ownership of forest land.

Ms. Karat said that the rise in the prices of essential commodities had made life miserable for tribals and the common people.

The Central and State governments failed to take steps to effectively check price rise, she said.

The tribal women’s meet (Adivasi Sthree Sangamam) was presided over by State secretary of the Democratic Women’s Association T.N. Seema and addressed by Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy among others.

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