Lack of awareness: Forest safety goes awry in Balangir

Bhubaneswar Lack of awareness: Forest safety goes awry in Balangir

Lack of awareness: Forest safety goes awry in Balangir

Friday, 11 January 2013 20:09

PNS | BALANGIR

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The lack of awareness among the people and absence of better coordination among various departments involved in implementation of the Forest Right Act (FRA), 2006, has affected the intended benefits for the beneficiaries, while the basic objective of protection of forests remains unrealised.

Recently, the Government has decided to frame new forest committees. As per the guidelines, in the forest right committee, two-third of the members would be ST. Women should also have a considerable presence in the panel. Earlier, only one-third of the members were tribals. But this time only villagers who are associated with forest generation and conservation should be made members.

After the historic FRA, 2006 came into existence, forest right committees were formed in villages. As per the rules, the committee should consist of 15 members in which one-third of the members would be from Sscheduled Tribes families.

First of all, there was lack of awareness among the people about the committee and while the president and secretary belong to the village, all the records remain in the panchyat office. As a result, the committees were formed ignoring the people who play a special role in guarding the forests for years.

Thanks to foul play, genuine villagers are ignored in the forest right committees as they are formed arbitrarily. Some mischievous elements try to convince the innocent people that they would get patta by cutting forest, which encourages destruction of the forests.

In Balangir district, many forests were destroyed as people cut trees indiscriminately with a hope to get pattas in Tureikela, Muribahal and other parts. Rather than helping preservation of forest, it helped in cutting of forest.

According to sources, to implement the recent amendment in the Forest Right Act, District Collector Debraj Mishra convened a meeting of Welfare, Panchyati Raj and Forest department officials. As the new village forest right committees are going to be formed from December 28 to January 5, creating awareness about FRA and committee composition were discussed.

The District Collector, while reviewing the progress of the FRA sought the list of 1,753 forest right committees formed earlier but there was no satisfactory explanation from the officials. The District Collector opined for inclusion of village forest committees and other bodies which are guarding the forest in the new committees.

Sources said the apathy and slow progress of various departments in taking up the community claims is often resented by members of civil society here. In Khaprakhol block, although 55community claims over the forest have been made, no progress has been made so far in settlement of the claims.

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