Question : Forest Land Claimed

(a) whether the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change party to the forest land claims at the State levels;
(b) the details of forest land claimed i.e. through dwelling or tilling;
(c) whether there is uniform law across all the States to handover the land by the Forest Department based on factors like holding the land over decades, tilling the land over decades or dwelling in a particular forest area since a long time; and
(d) whether there is an attempt by the Government to identify people who do not voluntarily apply for ownership of the forest lands due to negligence but have long dwelling in a particular forest area or have been tilling the forest lands since long?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, FOREST AND CLIMATE CHANGE
(SHRI ASHWINI KUMAR CHOUBEY)

(a) Under Section 3 (1)(a) of “the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA)”, there is a provision of right to hold and live in the forest land under individual or common occupation for self-cultivation for livelihood by a member or members of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes or other traditional forest dwellers.As per FRA and rules made thereunder, State Governments are responsible for implementation of the Act. Gram Sabha is the authority to initiate the process for determining the nature and extent of individual or community forest rights or both that may be given to the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes or other traditional forest dwellers. Gram Sabha calls for claims and authorizes the Forest Rights Committee to accept the claims.

(b) Information on forest land claimed/ allotted toforest dwelling Scheduled Tribes or other traditional forest dwellers is not collated in this Ministry.Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal Ministry for implementation of FRA, 2006 at central level.As per the information collected by the Ministry of Tribal Affairstill October, 2021, a total of 42,96,452 claims (41,26,807 individual and 1,69,645 community claims) have been filed and 20,75,787 titles (19,74,841 individual and 1,00,946 community claims) have been distributedover an area involving forest lands to the extent of 1,58,76,759.80 acres.

(c)&(d) The forest rights on forest land are granted based on FRA and rules and guidelines made thereunderissued in this regard by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
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