Orissa tribals demand notification of law protecting their dwellings

Thousands of tribals staged a protest demonstration here today demanding the notification of the Scheduled Tribes and other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 with immediate effect.

Bhubaneswar, Oct 2 : Thousands of tribals staged a protest demonstration here today demanding the notification of the Scheduled Tribes and other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 with immediate effect.

The tribals took out a rally under the banner of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), a network of voluntary organisations working for forest dwellers.

CSD Convener Gopinath Majhi said the Government's indifference in notifying the law is creating problems for tribals.

Thousands of families had been evicted from forest areas in the name of the Act even though the rules were yet to be notified, Majhi said.

"The Act has been made ten months back, but its notification has not been done. The Act says that unless the verification of the land is done, none of the tribals should be displaced or moved. But the government in the name of plantation is removing the tribals from these areas," he said.

The protestors also demanded that the government withdraw forest-eviction cases filed against the tribals.

"We have taken out this rally to tell the government that either put us in jail or make a law for us," said Anna Khujur, a tribal woman protestor.

The Act provides "to recognise and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, who have been residing in such forests for generations, but whose rights could not be recorded; to provide for a framework for recording the forest rights so vested and the nature of evidence required for such recognition and vesting in respect of forest land."

The tribals are the poorest and most marginalised community in India, with the worst social and health indicators. They make up around eight percent of 1.1-billion country's population.

In India there is an amalgam of 437 tribes, and in Orissa there are 62 distinct tribal groups, making it the largest collection of tribal people in a single state in the country.

ANI