An Act for electoral gains

FRA 2006, designed to recognise the rights of STs and traditional forest dwellers, is leading to deforestation.

The Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 was promulgated on October 25, 1980, and all encroachments until that date were regularised. Nevertheless, the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, was promulgated to recognise the rights over forest land occupied by Scheduled Tribes (STs) and other traditional forest dwellers (OTFDs) for three generations (75 years) as of December 13, 2005. Despite this, encroachments on forest lands persisted, and by 2005, OTFDs did not have more than a 25-year occupation. Evidences were manipulated, and numerous claims by OTFDs and STs were approved. Poor implementation has led to unending deforestation.

Politicians exploited the new cutoff date as a tool to please their voters. Before every election, STs and OTFDs were encouraged to occupy forest lands with the promise of regularisation after the government was formed. In effect, rights were claimed and recognised for all encroachments made until December 13, 2005, even though regularisation for OTFDs was illegal. As encroachments on forest lands continued, senior ministers of states and the Centre even argued for extending the cutoff date. There appears to be no political will to stop forest encroachment.

While the cutoff date has not been extended, methods to verify evidence have been diluted, and bogus claims for individual forest rights are on the rise, particularly in election-bound states such as Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh. These states, along with Maharashtra and Jharkhand, are losing high-quality forests at an alarming rate due to the misuse of the law. Ground flora and smaller trees are initially cleared; the land is ploughed and cultivated while retaining medium- and large-sized trees. Claims under FRA are simultaneously made, processed, and approved. The remaining trees are subsequently burned and girdled. This results in not only the loss of the carbon sequestration potential of the trees but also the release of more CO2 into the atmosphere through burning. Sometimes, ground flora is cleared after claim approval.

FRA, 2006, lays down the rules for choosing two out of 13 evidences for recommendation of claims by the Gram Sabha, scrutiny by a sub-divisional-level committee (SDLC), and approval by a district-level committee (DLC). Typically, statements from village elders and possession of a ration card are relied upon to approve the claims. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA), the nodal agency for implementation, has diluted the law by advising the states to disregard satellite imagery evidence if it conflicts with other evidence. Forest officers are left powerless to reject bogus claims. Satellite imagery is the only scientific evidence, and it is concerning that MoTA itself has instructed states not to consider it. OTFDs must prove 75 years of occupation as of December 13, 2005, but MoTA’s clarifications to the states, dated September 12, 2014, state that OTFD claim rejections are higher than those of STs due to an incorrect interpretation of 75 years of occupation and have clarified that they need to prove 75 years of residence in the area. These clarifications are illegal, misleading, and not in tune with the law.

MoTA and the states regularly monitor the Act’s implementation and resolve bottlenecks for rejection. However, no authority investigates the bogus claims that are accepted and approved.

When bogus claims are approved for some STs and OTFDs, many more come forward to clear tree growth and file fresh claims. This goes on. On the recommendation of the states, the Supreme Court of India on February 28, 2019 suspended the eviction of rejected claimants and ordered re-verification. No state has completed re-verification, but some states have opened Pandora’s Box and encouraged fresh claims continuously. Occupation of land leads to clearing tree growth, girdling, and burning, and in the process, deforestation continues endlessly. When occupants are dispossessed, the areas remain barren.

Before the 2024 Assembly elections, Andhra Pradesh recognised claims for over two lakh acres of forest land in January 2022, which includes the recognition of 20,000 acres of claims that were rejected earlier. For electoral gains in the 2023 elections, the Telangana government processed applications for recognising rights over 11.5 lakh acres of forest land and has approved
STs claims over 4 lakh acres. The approval of 7.5 lakh acres of OTFD claims is in the pipeline.

The Telangana forest minister, while addressing all forest officers from section level to state level through video conferencing on June 22, 2018, instructed them not to harass villagers who had encroached on forest land up to June 2014. Prashant Kumar Jha, the then head of Forest Force Telangana, reported the matter to the state’s Chief Secretary on July 20, 2018. In his letter, Jha added that rights were granted over 2.73 lakh acres of forest land in combined Andhra Pradesh in 2009, just before the Assembly and Parliament elections, and a public perception was created that rights would be granted on any freshly occupied forest land by misusing FRA, 2006. This led to fresh encroachments of 58,000 acres by 2014 in Telangana alone. Jha did not get
the state’s support for eviction. The present encroachment figure stands at 11.5 lakh acres.

The MoTA website reveals that Chhattisgarh has granted individual forest rights over 5.36 lakh acres by 2012–13, which has progressively increased to 9.19 lakh acres by 2022–23. In the same period, in Madhya Pradesh, it has increased from 5.06 to 9.02 lakh acres; in Andhra Pradesh, it has increased from 2.02 to 4.49 lakh acres; and in Odisha, it has increased from 4.73 to 6.67 lakh acres. The increases are quite sharp in election years. The sharpest increase in recognition of rights over 1.27 lakh acres was observed in Maharashtra in January 2019 before the Parliament elections.

The Odisha government has recently come up with a new scheme called ‘Mo Jungle Jami Yojane’. It envisages granting more forest rights.

Revenue department officers head SDLCs and DLCs and are recognising large proportions of bogus claims under pressure from politicians. The inaction or connivance of the forest officers from top to bottom also aids the approval. It is this nexus that is eating into our forests.

(The writer is a former head of the forest force in Karnataka)