Status of Implementation of the Forest Rights Act in Rajasthan

Abstract

"The paper tries to do a comparative analysis of the forest governance in terms of dealing with the issue of encroachments on forest lands in the state of Rajasthan. Previous studies done by Seva Mandir have shown that enroachments as a phenomenon have had severe impact not only on the ecological health of the forests as common lands but also dilutes the community stake on the same. The paper examines the physical context and the various legislations enacted since the colonial times (both at the centre and state level) to deal with this issue and also the status of the implementation of the same.

"The paper also tries to analyse the status of the implementation of the recently enacted forest rights act 2006 that overrides the previous legislations. Surprisingly a total of about 35000 claims have been received in the State of Rajasthan as a result of the act which does not match the actual ground reality in terms of potential claims. Thus somewhere there is lack of understanding as well as capacities at the level of the gram sabhas and forest rights committee. There are also many other hanging issues with the act such as what will happen to the inheritability of the land, will it be entered into the revenue records, what will happen to the community forest rights act provision, deciding upon the non-tribal forest dwelling communities etc. Lastly the paper tries to analyse the various lobbies that are working towards this issue and the way forward.

"As against the given topic of Forest Tenure Rights we do agree that recognition of tenure rights is fundamental to the productive use of land, but also that legislative changes such as the forest rights act are fraught with the danger of becoming Land Distribution Schemes. Secondly the capacities at the ground level needs to be enhanced considerably before people/gram sabhas/forest rights committees become capable of deciding upon the legitimacy of the claims and are able to decide upon the judicious land use practices that safeguard sustainability of ecology and livelihoods in the future. This was also evident during one of the pilot projects of Seva Mandir wherein operationalisation and implementation of the Forest Rights Act in a few pilot villages was analysed in the year 2008."