Odisha: ‘Mo Jungle Jami Yojana’ to protect rights of tribal
By Pradeep Kumar Panda
Bhubaneswar, July 5: The Government of Odisha has formally come up with ‘Mo Jungle Jami Yojana’ (My Forestland Scheme) intending to complete recognition of all rights under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights Act), 2006, (in short FRA, 2006) in the next two years.
Under Mo Jungle Jami Yojana scheme, Forest Rights Cells will be constituted at the tahsil and district level with professional human resources to ensure and assist in the effective implementation of FRA, 2006. The project would speed-up the post-rights recognition activities within a prescribed timeframe.
As per the tribal profile of Odisha, the State is home to 62 types of tribes including 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). The 2011 census says the State is ranked third in terms of tribal population nationally.
The tribal population of the State is 95,907,56 which constitutes 22.85% of the total population. Out of 53,845 villages in the State, there are 32,562 FRA potential villages.
The estimated potential forest area over which forest rights can be recognized in Odisha is approximately 35,739 sq km.
“Odisha is one of the leading States in implementation of FRA with distribution of 4.56 lakhs of individual forest right (IFR) titles in the country as of now. However, there still exists a gap between the potential and actual achievement in the rights recognition and the linked development processes,” said both Revenue and Disaster Management and ST and SC Development departments in a joint notification.
Apart from the individual forest right, the State government recognizes that provisions of FRA have an immense potential to improve forest governance and provide livelihood security by recognizing Community Rights (CR) and Community Forest Resource Rights (CFR) in particular.
The departments admit that the progress in terms of recognition of community rights (CR), Community Forest Resource (CFR) Rights and the conversion of un-surveyed habitations and forest villages to revenue villages is not encouraging.
Moreover, where rights have already been recognized, there are gaps in the correction of records for the titles distributed as well as a poor rate of convergence with other schemes and programs of the government.
Now, the government wants to ensure that all eligible claimants, primarily single women and PVTGs get land titles and record corrections are made for 100% title holders. All the identified un-surveyed and forest villages are converted into revenue villages and all households have access to water supplies, road connectivity, health and school.
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, or the Forest Rights Act as it is commonly known, is a historic milestone that ensures the rights and livelihood of forest dwelling communities. The Act recognize and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers who have been residing in such forests for generations but whose rights could not be recorded and provide a framework for recording the forest rights so vested and the nature of evidence required for such recognition and vesting in respect of forest land.
Odisha will become the first in India to recognise community forest rights along with individual rights offered by the Centre. The scheme is conceived to bridge the gaps and address critical issues not targeted in the central scheme (FRA) for the past 15 years since its implementation.
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