20,000 and counting; cancelled FRA claims re-examined and approved in MP

Image Courtesy:mpinfo.org

What can be called a moment of cheer for Adivasis in Madhya Pradesh, the government is in an active process of re-examining cancelled forest land claims.

The Madhya Pradesh government has put to use a software called the MP Vanmitra Software which is currently re-examining claims under the Forest Rights Act that were initially cancelled. So far, 20,517 claims have been accepted after re-examination.

The Gram Forest Rights Committees are re-examining about 2.6 lakh claims cancelled earlier. After examining the claims, the subdivision level committees have redressed 82,663 claims and sent them to district level committees with recommendation. District level committees have resolved 28,710 claims and 20,517 claims have been accepted, as reported by The Pioneer.

In the state, after the implementation of Forest rights Act, 2006, about 2.2 lakh individual forest rights and about 27 thousand community rights have been bestowed upon tribal individuals and communities through documents called Van Adhikar Patras.

The communities and individuals are also further entitled to benefits of government schemes and accordingly, as many as 54,965 Kapildhara wells, 57,721 land restoration cases, 24,366 diesel-electric irrigation pumps and about 61,000 houses have been sanctioned to forest dwellers who have been granted the Adhikar Patras.