Constitutional provisions being diluted, alleges rights body member

Taking strong exception to the Draft National Forest Policy-2018, speakers at a seminar on the topic here on Sunday alleged that the policy, in its present form, was against the interest of the girijans and highly biased in favouring the corporate sector.

The policy, which has been put in the public domain to elicit views, proposes to launch community forest management mission (CFMM) to manage the resources though a participatory approach.

“The draft policy has mentioned ‘girijan’ only once. It has been designed keeping the interests of the corporate sector in mind, with an eye on the timber and mineral wealth of the tribal belt,” alleged Jitendra Chowdhury, national convener of Aadivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch, adding that the tribal people were deliberately kept out of the scenario.

The NDA government at the Centre, he observed, was diverting thousands of hectares of forest land to the corporate sector at the cost of tribal people, on the pretext of extending the ‘ease of doing business’ policy to tribal areas.

Referring to the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution and Panchayat Raj (Extension) Act in Scheduled Areas, Mr. Chowdhury accusing the Centre of diluting the spirit of the provisions in place to safeguard the interests of the girijans.

“Of the 50 lakh applications received under the Recognition of Forest Rights Act (RoFr), 30 lakh have been rejected,” Mr. Chowdary pointed out, while buttressing his arguments.

Citing the bullet train project proposed in Maharashtra, he said that around 50,000 girijans from Nasik area took up a 180-km march to Mumbai, alleging that they would lose their land.

Though the objective of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority on spending the accumulated ₹1 lakh crore was good, the rights of adivasis are being encroached upon with the Forest Department taking over land for which the rights were given to tribal people , Mr. Chowdhury said.

Participating in the seminar, former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma said the issues related to implementation of the PESA, RoFR Act, mining in tribal areas, support price for forest produce should be debated at the State and national level . Terming joint forest management as official orders, he said all forest rights in the Clause V of Schedule V should be changed in favour of girijans.

Grama sabhas

“Under the PESA, no scheme, project or programme that directly or indirectly impacts adivasis should be implemented without the consent of grama sabhas. The draft makes a casual reference to the RoFr as though it was subordinate to the Joint Forest Management (JFM),” he said.

In principle, even the draft had to be discussed at grama sabhas, he opined, adding that it should be modified in line with the views of adivasi grama sabhas and State Tribal Advisory Councils.

Retired Director of Tribal Cultural Research and Training Institute V.N.K. Sastry said the draft policy created apprehensions of taking away the benefits of the 1988 Act.

“The draft did not pay attention to taking girijans’ views into consideration,” he said. .

Bauxite mining

Bhadrachalam MLA Sunnam Rajaiah said only 1.5 lakh acres was given under RoFR at the rate of half or quarter of an acre though the target was 10 lakh acres.

A.P.Girjana Sangham vice-president Kolanka Lakshmana Murthy deplored taking away of individual rights under Vana Samrakshana Samitis. General secretary P. Appalanarsa said GO 97 on bauxite mining remained and there was no concrete assurance from Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu when the rights in areas with bauxite reserves would be given to the adivasis.