In the last few months, the Forest Rights Act has been discussed more than it has been in the last decade. There are several reasons for this: rising movements and protests across rural areas against non-recognition of rights, rejection of claims, diversion of forest without Gram Sabha consent, declaration of parks and sanctuaries without settling peoples’ rights, the Supreme Court’s direction to all state governments to furnish information on the status of Forest Rights Act implementations and elections in several tribal- and forest-dominated states.
The current discussion has chiefly focused on the non-implementation and poor quality of forest rights recognition. While addressing ineffective implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) is important, interventions to support the beneficiaries of recognised claims both for Individual Forest Rights (IFR) and Community Forest Rights (CFR) are equally important, particularly to enhance the livelihood of forest dwellers and promote forest management in a sustainable manner.
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ FRA database shows that 1.7 million individual and 64,238 community titles were recognised as of November 30, 2017. Now that the rights of more than a million forest dwellers over forest-land and resources have been recognised, it is worth analysing the policy and institutional support in the post-forest rights recognition phase.
Inconsistent policies
The mere recognition of rights is not sufficient for citizens to enhance their livelihood and wellbeing. Instead, recognition of rights and their actual realisation requires the presence of a robust institutional arrangement with well-defined roles and responsibilities.
An analysis of post-forest rights scenarios suggests the institutional mechanism to support title holders is weak and inadequate. For example, the foremost task of the district administration in the post-recognition phase, as laid down under the amended Rule 12 A of the Forest Rights Rules, is that the record of recognised rights needs to be entered into government books under the relevant state laws or within a period of three months, whichever is earlier.
However, a scrutiny of title documents and discussions with district level functionaries in different states revealed that the entered number of record of rights of recognised titles is not more than 5%. There is no coordination between the revenue and forest department at the district level to maintain a record of rights. In its absence, boundary maps, surveys and khata numbers, title-holders find it difficult to invest capital and labour in their recognised land.
Rule 16 of the FRA prescribes that the state government shall ensure that all government schemes, including those relating to land development, productivity, basic amenities and other livelihood measures are provided to such claimants and communities whose rights have been recognised under the Act. However, a majority of the states have not evolved policies to support the title holders. There are exceptional and selective cases in Maharashtra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, where the administration has issued orders to avail various government schemes and loans from credit market to the title holders.
All the 13 IFR title-holders in Pachgaon village of Chandrapur District, Maharashtra, received loans of Rs 30,000-40,000 from the Vidarbha Konkan Gramin Bank. Discussions with the IFR title holders revealed that the credit amount helped them make their recognised land productive and also resulted in increasing income from cultivation. This was also in a few villages in Kalahandi district, Odisha, and Gariaband district, Chhattisgarh. However, such policies are inconsistent, and depend on individual officials and civil society groups to make the administration and the Gram Sabha work together.
The Maharashtra experience
Similarly, there is an institutional vacuum in the aftermath of CFR recognition. Forest dwellers in areas where the CFR is recognised have to face a number of hurdles at the state level to assert their rights over minor forest produce. State forest laws regulating minor forest produce are yet to be amended. For instance, six villages in Golamunda block of Kalahandi – Khainsuguga, Jamugunda Bahal, Jamjharan, Kasturpadar, Kanakpur and Kalipur – have been trying to assert their right over trade of the tendu leaf and sell the harvest to a trader from Maharashtra. But the Odisha Forest Department did not allow them to go through with the sale last year.
After several petitions, protests and media reports, the forest department of Odisha issued a notification on November 17, 2017, allowing the villages to sell the leaf per their discretion. However, the notification is applicable only to these six villages and not across the state. There are more than 50,000 recognised community forest rights across India, but Gram Sabhas exercising harvesting rights over all minor forest produces as defined under FRA is limited to Maharashtra only.
Forest dwellers in only one – Maharashtra – of the four states, the others being Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha, that we studied have made any headway in the post-forest rights recognition phase and have tasted success in increasing their livelihood from forest resources. In 2017 87 villages, of about 35,000 forest dwellers, in Korchi taluka of Gadchiroli earned Rs 11.47 crore and 38 villages from Sadak Arjuni and Deori Taluka of Gondia earned Rs 7.44 crore from selling tendu leaves.
This was made possible because both the administration and the Gram Sabhas’ collective action, facilitated by civil society and NGOs. The Maharashtra government’s notification of January 19, 2015, gave two options to Gram Sabhas in the Panchayat’s Extension to Scheduled Areas to sell their forest produce either to the Maharashtra Forest Department or directly to any contractor of their choice.
In the last three years, the number of villages opting for self-sale by the Gram Sabha increased manifold. This year, of 1,292 villages in Gadchiroli district, 1,171 decided to sell their tendu leaves produce through the Gram Sabha. Despite this, the Gram Sabhas have found it challenging to sell their leaf harvest because the market is controlled by contractors and other external factors.
To illustrate, 87 villages under the Korchi Maha Gram Sabha Sangathan decided to sell their leaves this year through the Gram Sabha, but no contractors turned up on March 27 and April 4, the days of auction. The administration is yet to intervene and carve out an alternative to support Gram Sabhas. The Tribal Development Department of Maharashtra is responsible for addressing the challenge that forest dwellers are facing in these villages.
An important legal instrument
A similar situation arose in 2013 in Gondia, and it was addressed by the tribal department. A minimum intervention that the department can do is to provide seed grant to the forest dwellers till their produce has been sold in the market.
Similarly, there is only apathy among the administrators in villagers where community forest rights have been recognised, especially in preparing and executing their management plans. Here again, except for Maharashtra, no state administration has extended support to Gram Sabhas in the preparation of management plans under the FRA.
Through a notification on June 12, 2015, the Maharashtra government directed the formation of a ‘District Convergence Committee’ in every district chaired by the collector and to include representatives from the tribal, agricultural, revenue and forest, animal husbandry, fisheries and panchayat departments.
So the Thane District Convergence Committee meets on the first Wednesday of every month. In addition to various programs and schemes, it discusses the proposals of the Gram Sabha related to forest management and allocates budget from different line departments. Nine villages in Murbad taluk of Thane received a number of grants under different schemes to protect and manage their forest areas recognised under CFR.
In fact, in 2017, nine Gram Sabhas in Murbad received a ‘Compensatory Afforestation Management Planning Authority’ grant for plantations from the Maharashtra Forest Department. An order of the Maharashtra Tribal Development Department on February 17, 2018, also promised grants to 164 Gram Sabhas.
Our experience in Maharashtra, though limited to a few districts, suggests that there is potential to make the FRA one of the more important legal instruments to reduce poverty among forest dwellers across India. The philosophy and intent of the FRA has been to undo historical injustice meted out to forest dwellers and to empower them in the decision-making process with reference to ownership, access, the use and disposal of forest resources and forest management.
This can be possible if state governments direct their respective line departments and district administration to integrate programs and schemes with forest rights title holders and extend possible support, including as technical inputs in the management of forest resources. The state governments need to build and strengthen the implementation capability of enforcement agencies.
Geetanjoy Sahu teaches at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Asavari Raj Sharma is a PhD scholar at the School of Habitat Studies, TISS.