JOIN USKCR to convene all-party meeting to resolve Podu cultivation issue in Telangana
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has decided to convene all-party meetings at the district level to solve the Podu land issues and protect the forest cover in the state.
The meetings — to be attended by MPs, MLAs, zilla and mandal parishad public representatives — should arrive at a unanimous view on providing forest rights to those already involved in Podu cultivation.
“But after the cutoff, not even an inch of forestland should be encroached,” the CM said.
The increasing incidents in Telangana of tribals clashing with forest department officials affirming their rights over forest lands has prompted CM Rao to sit and discuss an acceptable way out.
These clashes have sometimes turned violent like in Mahabubabad district in July this year when a forest officer was assaulted by a few tribal women. In June 2019, a woman forest officer was injured in one such attack with the alleged backing of a ruling party leader in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district.
Podu or shifting cultivation as practiced by various tribal groups in forest areas has for long been an economical survival versus environmental sustenance issue.
About 87 per cent of Podu encroachments are recorded in 12 north Telangana districts like Bhadradri-Kothagudem, Asifabad, Adilabad, Jayashankar Bhoopalpally, Khammam, Nirmal, Warangal, Kamareddy, Nizamabad and Nalgonda.
Though the Rao government had earlier promised to extend due rights to the forest dwellers under the forest rights act, the assurances, analysts say, have mostly remained a lip service.
Rao has on Saturday convened a meeting of the district collectors, forest department officials for solving the Podu lands problem.
The CM instructed officials to accept claims from November 8 to December 8, from the tribals doing Podu cultivation. Preparatory meetings should be held, and village committees formed as per the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. One nodal officer appointed for two to three villages, RDO at the Sub Division level and collector at the district level should monitor the process.
“Tribals using forest area should be provided with an alternative government land nearby for podu cultivation. If there is no such land available, they should be given land on the outer periphery of the forest,” Rao instructed officials.
The CM wants forest land boundaries fixed with protection trenches and plants like the Nickernut plants grown on the boundary line. Forest department funds and MG-NREGA funds could be utilized for this purpose.
“Tribes like Gond, Koya, and Kolam have always preserved the forests; it is the outsiders who destroy them and if need be, preventive detention acts should be invoked against such people,” the CM said.
The Chief Minister instructed officials to stop government incentives like Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bhima, free power to farmers indulging in Ganja cultivation. “Pattas of those cultivating ganja in forest lands should be canceled. Such people should be sent to jail,” directed Rao.
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