Van Gujjars denied entry to Govind Pashu forest

Jotirmay Thapliyal

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, May 24

Showing scant respect for the Forest Rights Act, the Uttarakhand Wildlife authorities have denied entry to Van Gujjars in one of its national parks. These Van Gujjar families from neighbouring Shivalik forests of Uttar Pradesh have been denied entry to Govind Pashu Vihar National Park in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand and they now lay stranded midway on the banks of Yamuna and Tons rivers facing sweltering heat.

Despite meeting Uttarakhand Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Van Gujjars are still to get respite. The state forest authorities have refused to grant them permission for their traditional summer grasslands in Govind Pashu Vihar. These Van Gujjars from Shivalik move to Govind Pashu Vihar Uttarkashi during summers as part of age old practice. They charged that Principal Chief Conservator of Forests RK Mahaja told them that they had no rights while the Chief Wildlife Warden refused to meet them.

It is noteworthy that in 2013, Principal Secretary S Ramaswamy accepted and passed order that these Van Gujjars should be allowed to move to their grasslands because they had not been offered any settlement nor their forest rights had been settled under the Forest Rights Act. 

The predicament of Van Gujjars can be gauged from the fact that they are living along the banks of the Yamuna and Tons, their animals and children are starving . These Van Gujjars families claim that they have not received any compensation or re-settlement from any of the state government either Uttar Pradesh or Uttarakhand in lieu of their traditional forest rights. There forest rights have not been settled under the Forest Rights Act.

An affected Van Gujjar Feroz disclosed that the Uttar Pradesh Government had certified  that we had not received any agricultural plot under re-settlement programme and thus Van Gujjars right to migrate to Uttarkashi cannot be denied. “The Uttar Pradesh Government has even recommended that in light of these circumstances they should be permitted to move to their summer pastures,” Feroz told The Tribune.