By IANS
Raipur : Chief Minister Raman Singh has shot off a letter to the Congress-led union government saying delay in implementation of a forest rights act indicates that the “Congress government lacks seriousness over the law that is directly linked to interests of millions of tribal families”.
In a letter addressed to Tribal Affairs Minister P.R. Kyndiah, Singh expressed serious concern over the delay in implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill 2006. The bill, aimed at giving tribals and forest dwellers the rights to occupy forest land, was passed by parliament in December 2006.
“The delay in the final notification of the act can cause a major resentment among millions of tribals across the country. In Chhattisgarh alone over 250,000 tribal families will be benefited (by the implementation of the bill),” said an official statement issued by Singh Sunday.
Singh in his letter to Kyndiah drew his attention over the delay in notification and also highlighted some lacunas in the draft rules for which suggestions and objections were sought from public by the central government in June this year.
“In the larger interest of forest safety and forest dwellers’ interests, the Chhattisgarh government has strongly advocated some changes in the draft rules because the legislation in its current form provides ownership rights to lands which they are possessing but no rights over trees on the same forested land,” the statement said.
“Out of the state’s total 135,194 sq km of land, 65 percent area comes under the tribal sub-plan and 44 percent is forest land. Most of the state’s population is dependent on forest produces and thus the forest rights act provisions and implementation mean a lot for the state,” the statement added.
“Central government should make a clear provision in the legislation that tribals should not only hold rights for cultivation of the forest land but also have rights on trees on the forest land,” Singh said in his letter to Kyndiah.
Singh’s letter to the union government came about two weeks after Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat wrote a letter to the prime minister regarding the delay in the notification of the forest bill and sought his intervention.
Political observers say that Singh’s letter to Kyndiah is aimed at projecting that Chhattisgarh’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government was more concerned about the welfare of tribal people than the Congress party was.
Chhattisgarh’s BJP government will face assembly polls later next year and 34 tribal reserved seats out of the state’s total 90 seats hold the key for the saffron government in its effort to retain power.