Raipur. Principal Secretary of Tribal Development Department Sonamni Bora said on the occasion of the inauguration of the training session of master trainers related to the implementation of Forest Rights Act that it is our responsibility to bring about a change in the lives of forest dwellers through the Forest Rights Act. He said that we all have to empower the forest dwellers for their social, economic progress and protection of forests by better implementing this Act. So that they can avail the benefits of various government schemes along with forest rights certificates.
It is worth mentioning that a three-day training of master trainers has been organized from 24 to 26 September at the Tribal Research and Training Institute located in Nava Raipur on the formation of Community Forest Resource Management Committee and preparation of work plan. Representatives of NGOs including officials associated with the implementation of Forest Rights Act were present in this training. On this occasion, Commissioner-in-Charge Sanjay Gaur, State Coordinator of Foundation of Ecological Security Sunmita Mishra, Kishore Kumar of UNDP and trainees from all other divisions were present.
Addressing the training programme, Principal Secretary Bora said that forest rights are a way for the people living in forests through which they can get the benefits of many schemes like education, health, reservation, employment through MNREGA, PDS etc. Through these works, we can help them in bringing them into the mainstream of society. We should not only work with the objective of implementing the project, but we should work with the objective of providing complete benefits. He said that we should work towards providing benefits to 100% eligible beneficiaries by using new techniques.
Principal Secretary Bora said that community forest resource rights are very important, as a result of which the village community gets the right to protect, conserve, manage and regenerate their traditional forests according to their needs and policies. This system is helpful in protecting the forest resources, traditional heritage and biodiversity of the tribes and other traditional forest dwellers as well as strengthening forest-based traditional livelihood. Apart from this, as a result of such a system, we can take successful steps towards climate change and environmental protection.
Principal Secretary Bora said that there are more than 13 thousand Gram Sabhas in Chhattisgarh. Out of which, approval has been given for the formation of Community Forest Management Resource Committee in 4 thousand 300 villages and Community Forest Management Committee has been formed in 2070 villages. He said that there is a need to work on the formation of Community Forest Resource Committees in the 13 thousand Gram Sabhas of the state. While discussing the Community Forest Resource Management Act, he said that even today the land in North East states like Tripura, Meghalaya is community owned. There, people decide together where to do farming, which crop to grow and are working towards a better livelihood. We should work towards further strengthening the community power.
During the training session, it was told that Chhattisgarh is the leading state in the country in the implementation of recognition of various forest rights. So far, more than 04 lakh 79 thousand individual forest rights, more than 49,000 community forest resource rights and more than 4300 community forest resource rights have been recognized on 19.78 lakh hectares of forest land in the state. Apart from this, habitat rights have been recognized on 22 villages of specially vulnerable tribal groups like Kamar and 19 villages of Baiga tribal community in district-Dhamtari and Gaurela Pendra-Marwahi respectively. The state government has also issued a notification by determining the process of death transfer for the implementation of rights granted under Section 4(4) of the Act to the descendants of individual forest rights holders.
Section 3(1) (j) of the Forest Rights Recognition Act, 2006 provides for rights to community forest resources. This right is very important from the point of view of empowering the Gram Sabhas and assigning them responsibility for the protection, conservation, management and regeneration of forests. The Forest Rights Act is being implemented in 30 districts of the state including the scheduled areas. Under the Forest Rights Recognition Act, the Gram Sabhas have the right to initiate the process of recognition of community forest resources rights. But due to lack of proper awareness about the Act at the ground level in the districts, errors have been seen in the process of recognition, which mainly includes determination and demarcation of the traditional and customary boundaries of the Gram Sabhas as per rules. Efforts are being made to remove these.