Forest Rights Act: Perils of slow implementation

It was in 2006 that the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 – commonly referred to as Forest Rights Act or FRA – was passed in the Parliament amid much hope and expectations. And controversies. 

Most environmentalists were against it, saying that giving rights to lands within forests to communities living there would legitimise and expedite faster depredation of forests. This genre of arguments was caricatured as ‘tigers vs tribals’ around that time. But finally, Parliament enacted it. It was a watershed moment indeed. 

Among the statements in the preamble of this act are the following lines: 

“And whereas the forest rights on ancestral lands and their habitat were not adequately recognised in the consolidation of state forests during the colonial period as well as in independent India resulting in historical injustice to the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem”. 

What the Forest Rights Act envisaged

The spirit of the Forest Rights Act was thus to correct this ‘historical injustice’. But what happened in reality? Let’s delve into the issue. 

The FRA provides for two classes of rights – individual rights to land on which a family used to cultivate, and the right of a village community to the village forest lands, respectively called individual forest rights (IFR) and community forest rights (CFR). 

The quantum of land to which a household would get the rights was to be determined by the evidence of occupation the household could produce. This was subject to an upper limit which varied across states but was always less than 4 hectares. 

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CFR was to be determined by the limit of the village forest land recognised by local custom whether the area was surveyed, un-surveyed, mapped or otherwise and no hard upper limit was set. Individuals were to enjoy non-alienable usufructuary rights on the lands assigned to them. CFR included the right to all the non-timber forest products (NTFPs) as well as the rights to manage the community forest. 

Non-recognition of community forest rights 

The process of recognising the rights to land was slow to pick up. The rules under the Forest Rights Act were framed in 2008 and had to be amended due to many deficiencies. The amended rules were put into effect in 2012. 

While there are differences in the way the whole process unfolded in different areas, the period between 2008 and now tends to show that states have been slow to recognise the rights under FRA as well as recognise CFR even if they recognised IFR. 

Even when CFR was recognised, marketing of the collected or harvested NTFPs posed many hurdles due to the requirement of the transit permit which was passed to the community with difficulties. The procedure for recognition itself is complicated, requiring certification from multiple agencies prior to formal recognition of rights. 

Tricky situations such as rights to numerically small communities still practising forms of jhoom cultivation or rights of nomadic tribal groups who customarily held a habitation as their own or the habitation rights of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) remain unresolved in many states. 

Role of civil society organisations 

Civil society organisations (CSOs) have attempted to facilitate the process of recognition of forest rights by enhancing awareness about them, by helping individuals complete the process in due time and by attempting to follow up with appropriate authorities for getting these rights recognised. 

In fact, recognition of forest rights has worked well only when CSOs or development professionals facilitated the community in filing applications. 

Also Read: Women shed ‘forest encroachers’ tag, turn land owners

While accurate and usable data from satellite imagery is available at the required level of disaggregation, use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology has been made in very few locations, and mostly by the CSOs. 

As the potential of application of forest rights is vast and the potential communities and lands are scattered, mostly in remote areas, GIS technologies should be intensively and systematically applied for recognition and management of forest rights.

Uneven recognition by states

Recognition of rights was higher and more generous when the forest dwellers could benefit from the proactive stance of officers involved in the tasks. Also, where state governments took a stand of recognising the rights expeditiously, the work was done more quickly. These two conditions prevailed in Maharashtra – in Gadchiroli district in particular – and in Chhattisgarh. 

For such an important law that was envisaged as a historical development for the disadvantaged communities of forest dwellers, the system for recording and updating the required data is not streamlined, making it difficult to access and update. Implementation is tracked against the submitted claims but not against the potential number or area for application of forest rights as this important baseline is not thoroughly defined.  

A close look at the data published by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs shows that the highest proportion of recognition of IFR (against submitted claims) was 79 percent in Andhra Pradesh while the lowest was 2 percent in Bihar. The national average was a little over 50 percent. 

The recognition of CFR was lower, at 41 percent nationally, with Maharashtra featuring on top with 74 percent and Uttarakhand taking the bottom spot with nil recognition. The extent to which this data corresponds with realised rights actually enjoyed by individuals and communities is a matter of speculation judging from the wide range of opinions expressed by civil society actors working on the subject. 

Cases of successful implementation

The work in the past 15 years has created several models of excellent implementation and management of FRA. Those need to be analysed in detail to make scalable programmes in other places. 

For example, the small village of Pachgaon in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra, which has only 60 tribal families was granted CFR in 2013 and it covered an area of 1,006 ha. Farming in the village is rainfed and of subsistence level with no support from any reliable cash crops.

Also Read: Soligas in tiger reserve win battle over forest rights 

After CFR was granted, the villagers, with facilitation from civil society, started systematically managing the forest in the CFR area. This has given them a dependable cash crop of bamboo and NTFPs. An all-women forest conservation-cum-management committee is effectively managing the CFR area. 

The village has achieved prosperity through CFR and can be treated as a replicable model village. The forest conservation committee ensures equal daily wages for men and women – Rs 500 for bamboo work and Rs 300 for non-bamboo work.

Over 80 local villagers get employment every day throughout the year. Approximately Rs 1.5 lakh is earned by a family per year from wage employment based only on bamboo. As many as 125 rules have been adopted by the gram sabha for self-governance and management of forest resources. 

The gram sabha has engaged an accountant, a GST consultant and a chartered accountant to fulfil its statutory responsibilities. From the income earned through bamboo, the gram sabha has created its own assets of a Gramsabha Bhavan, a 10-acre plot and tractors for handling and transporting forest produce. 

Some more villages with approved CFRs are walking in the footsteps of Panchgaon. All it requires is enough will and proper support. 

The lead image at the top shows a bamboo depot at Pachgaon village in Maharashtra, which is successfully implementing the Forest Rights Act and benefitting the community (Photo by Abhay Gandhe)

Abhay Gandhe is a senior agriculture advisor with a rich experience of 38 years in managing agriculture development programmes in India.