Govt rules out relaxing provisions of Forest Rights Act

The government today ruled out relaxing any provision of the Forest Rights Act to pave way for certain projects and said it would unveil a national tribal policy in the next one year.
Dismissing reports of move to relax the norms of the Forest Rights Act, 2009 to pave way for certain projects, Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram said no such proposals are being considered by his ministry.
"There is no such initiative by our ministry or by any other ministry. Some people are suggesting that there should be some relaxation in case of linear projects of railways and national highways and discussions are on. But no provision of the Act is being relaxed," he told reporters here.

Oram's remarks came in the backdrop of reports that moves were afoot to provide some relaxations such as in the case of taking consent of the tribal people as mandated for diverting their traditional forest lands for industrial projects.
He said projects that would get exemptions from the Act have been spelt out in the Section 2 of the legislation, like undertaking construction of a school building, dispensary, hospital, fare price shop, banks, aanganwadi centres, minor irrigation canals and community centres.
Highlighting the initiatives of his ministry during the last 100 days, Oram said the Integrated Tribal Development Agencies and the Integrated Tribal Development Programmes are being strengthened on a priority basis to deliver goods and services more effectively as it still remains a challenge.

The minister said he was personally reaching out to the tribal people to remove a sense of alienation and make them feel the government is by their side.
In this regard, he said, the government would "unveil a 'national tribal policy' in the next one to one-and-half years". The Minister also informed about a move to have a bilingual schedule of tribes in India -- in Hindi and English -- to remove anomalies in inclusion of the tribes in the list.
At present, the schedule is maintained only in English, resulting in omission of some tribes because of spelling and phonetic issue, he said.