Implement Forest Rights Act in state, shepherds urge CM

Hundreds of members of the shepherd community from across the state met Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu at the Assembly complex here yesterday and urged him to implement the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

Sources said that the Chief Minister had called the community members to Shimla for a discussion on their demands. In the memorandum, the shepherds alleged that the authorities were not showing seriousness in implementing the Forest Rights Act, 2006, in the state. In the past two years of the present government, despite political will, not one community and individual right 'patta' had been provided in Kangra, Mandi, Chamba, Hamirpur, Bilaspur and Kullu districts. Sub Divisional Level Committees (SDLC) and District Level Committees (DLC) across the state had approved thousands of proposals of land transfer for development projects in the past two years under Section 3 (2) of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, and the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) but not to shepherds and farmers.

Around 1.5 lakh families in the state were directly dependent on forestland. These families own one acre to five acre in forests. They mainly belong to Dalit, poor and ordinary families. The sword of eviction was hanging over them as they were being evicted one by one.

These families come under the category of Traditional Forest Dwellers and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The eligible families could be given protection by providing them with the 'patta' of individual rights.

The shepherds alleged that more than one lakh families in the state were engaged in animal husbandry and more than 60 per cent of them were earning their livelihood as nomadic animal herders. The strong economy of these families was based on open grazing. The Forest Department had declared pastures where open grazing was happening as per the seasonal grazing cycle, as national park or wildlife area by planting trees, thereby forcibly depriving animal herders of their right to stopover, water places, paths, grazing areas, while the Forest Rights Act provided all these rights for livelihood to the claimants in any type of forest area, national park or wildlife area. All these families could be provided security by strengthening their economy by providing them the 'patta' of collective rights under the Forest Rights Act, they added.

They urged the Chief Minister that effective guidelines be issued to all administrative officers in the state to implement the Forest Rights Act. They said that the government should ensure that all nomadic cattle herders were allowed seasonal animal grazing under the Forest Rights Act. The applications of collective claims for forest rights lease of Bara Bhangal gram sabha were pending with the District Level Committee, Kangra, for many years, they alleged.