Tribal Affairs Ministry Objects To Environment And Forests Ministry’s Unilateral Action To Allow Diversion Of Tribal Land For Development Projects
New Delhi : A turf war has broken out between the Tribal Affairs Ministry and the Environment and Forests Ministry over the latter unilaterally issuing an order on October 28 allowing diversion of forest land for linear projects like roads, rail lines, pipelines, canals and power transmission lines without requiring the consent of the concerned Gram Sabha (village committee).
The notification seeks to override the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, popularly known as Forest Rights Act (FRA) that mandates the gram sabhas’ consent for any project in the forest areas. It says the mandatory provision of such consent on behalf of the local inhabitants stands waived for the linear projects.
It goes on to further dilute the FRA restrictions by stating that the new order will apply to all plantations that have been notified as forests after December 13, 1930. This is to override the FRA giving heritable rights to the forest dwellers on land they have been living for three generations, or 75 years till December 13, 2005, i.e. since 1930.
The Tribal Affairs Ministry headed by Jual Oram is the concerned ministry dealing with all issues on FRA and hence it questioned the authority of the Environment and Forests Ministry of Prakash Javadekar encroaching upon its turf, asserting that the notification is unauthorised and illegal.
Noting that it has the responsibility to protect the rights of tribals and other forest dwellers under FRA, its secretary Hrushikesh Panda even called an urgent meeting with his counterpart Ashok Lavasa to explain how the latter’s ministry has overshot its jurisdiction. According to the Union government’s business rules, only the Tribal Affairs Ministry can issue guidelines or instructions under this act.
Bureaucrats in both the ministries say this kind of turf wars have been erupting between the two ministries since there is no clarity on whose writ runs in such matters as the forests are under the environment and forest ministry while there is a separate ministry to protect rights of the tribals.
The FRA stipulates consent of the Gram Sabhas for every project coming up in forest areas. It says if the forest dwellers do not have a record of rights over the land, the government must accord such rights to them and take their consent before acquiring the land.
Officials of the environment and forest ministry say the FRA already has exemption provision for projects such as schools, dispensaries and hospitals, where the land required is less than a hectare, and as such its extension to the public interest projects like roads and canals passing through forests should not be objected. They admit that the tribal ministry should have been asked to issue the notification but say it need not create a fuss when the government is committed to faster development.
Environment activists have questioned the notification setting a 75-year norm to exclude plantations from the purview of the FRA as it amounts to declaring that a forest land after 1930 is exempt from the FRA provisions. They point out that the FRA does not segregate between forests notified before and after 1930.
