Forest Rights Act
Read the passage given below carefully:
Since large forest areas were nationalized in colonial times, tribals have been treated by forest departments as encroachers in their own homelands. This changed with the Forest Rights Act, which granted tribals title to the land they were cultivating in 2006. The forest departments own all timber in forests, but tribals have rights over minor produce, including grass. They also have the right to manage community forests.
2. Implementation in Dediapada was initially terrible: 90% of tribal title applications were rejected. ARCH Vahini, a local NGO led by Anil Patel and Ambrish Mehta, took the matter to court. The court allowed a wide range of documents, including satellite photos, to be used to establish title.
3. ARCH Vahini started using GPS devices for mapping. Each villager walks with a GPS device to the edge of his field and presses a button. He then walks around the perimeter of his field and pr another button. The device immediate draws an exact map of the field, which can be download into computers and printed. The maps of all villagers are fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle superimposed on a satellite map of the village taken in 2006, establishing plot ownership at the time. This has greatly improved the official acceptance rate, though titling is still incomplete.
4. I first visited the taluka in 2013 and asked the villagers what they would gain from a legal title. T said it would force the forest department to permit the entry of tractors into their villages, something is forbidden until then. They had no desire to stick to living self-sufficient lives in the jungle, as desi by some ideologues. tribals wanted the good things of life enjoyed by mainstream folk.
5. When I visited the taluka last month, much had changed. The Supreme Court had held that bam was grass, not a tree. This meant that forest bamboo belonged to the tribals, not the for the department.
6. In Dediapada, many bamboo groves had flowered after 2009. Bamboo dies after flowering, so v amounts of dead, dry bamboo littered the forest floor, becoming a major fire hazard. This convinced the forest department of the urgency of allowing tribals to assert their new ownership rights.
7. JK Paper Mills, which once got bamboo from the forest department, was earlier seen as a foe o tribal, robbing them of access to bamboo. But now the gram sabhas, aided by NGOs, negotiate a price of Z 2,815 per tonne with the mill for fallen bamboo delivered to the roadside for trucks lift. Between April 2014 and June 2015, the mill lifted 96,000 tonnes of bamboo. Wages paid totally a whopping? 12 crore and the net profit of gram sabhas after all expenses was 6.5 crore.
8. This was a huge income for the 2,500 households in the target villages. At a meeting in the barn forest I attended, one-third of the villagers came on motorcycles, bought with the high wages the had earned. Most said they now owned TVs and cellphones. All but two wore shirts and trouser abandoning the old Ganji-dhoti.
9. They said the gram sabhas were keeping the profits in bank fixed deposits till their future use w decided. A good chunk will go to soil and forest conservation, planting bamboo in degraded forest replanting bamboo in the dead areas, and creating vegetation-free fire lines to stop the spread forest fires.
10. Hurdles keep appearing. A new divisional forest officer (DFO) refuses to allow more bamboo o of the forest, possibly because a lot lies in a sanctuary. Lawyers say the FRA provides tribal right even in sanctuaries. If the DFO remains adamant, the gram sabhas plan to go to court.
11. JK Mills provided five lakh free bamboo saplings last year and will provide another 10 lakh t year. The former foe has now become a friendly client. The villagers have stopped all grazing the newly planted areas to protect saplings. The new crop will be cut after four years. Being quail green bamboo, it will fetch a much higher price of 4,000 per tonne.
12. In effect; once-impoverished and powerless villagers have become plantation owners with a regu substantial income. They are managing the bamboo forests productively. Despite the hurdles, this social and economic revolution.
13. This holds lessons for tribals in other states. They too should be given bamboo forests to mana and become plantation owners. That will surely end jungle Maoism.
(I) On the basis of your understanding of the passage answer the following questions with the help of the given options:
(a) Tribals are treated as encroachers in their own lands because———————
(i) their lands were left fallow by them
(ii) the land was used to build roads
(iii) it is sanctuary land
(iv) forest areas were nationalized in colonial times
(b) The change that occurred in 2006 was—————-
(i) tribals went on rioting
(ii) the Forest Rights Act granted land rights to tribals
(iii) the Forest Rights Act sealed all the land
(iv) the tribals left the forests
(II) Answer the following questions briefly.
(a) What authority do the forest department and tribals have over forests?
(b) How did the court order affect getting a title of the land in Dediapada?
(c) What is ARCH Vahini?
(d) What did the owning of a title give the villagers?
(e) What was the aim of the villagers?
(f) What urgency made the forest department relent?
(II) Find words from the passage which mean the same as:
(a) a small group of trees (para 6)
(b) large in amount (para 12)
Ans. (I) (a) (iv) forest areas were nationalized in colonial times
(b) (ii) The Forest Rights Act granted land rights to tribals
(II) (a) The forest department owns all the timber in the forest while the tribals are allowed to collect minor produce, including grass, from the forest.
(b) The court allowed a wide range of documents, including satellite photos, to be used to establish title rights over the land.
(c)ARCH Vahini is a local NGO led by Anil Patel and Ambrish Mehta who took the matter of tribal claims to court, for them.
(d) The owning of a title allowed the villagers to enforce their right to bring tractors into their villages.
(e) The villagers no longer wished to live a self-sufficient existence in the forest and wanted an entry into the mainstream lifestyle.
(f) The urgency of clearing the forest of deadwood due to a risk of forest fires, made the forest department relent to the urgency of allowing tribals to assert their ownership rights and till the land for fresh planting.
(III) (a) grove
(b) substantial
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