LS okays forest rights Bill

The Lok Sabha today passed the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support.

This despite the fact that the government had sprung the Bill on the Lok Sabha as a last minute surprise and did not circulate the amendments to the Bill first introduced in last year's winter session.

The Bill did not have as smooth a passage in its earlier avatar, with first wildlife enthusiasts among the young MPs including, reportedly, Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi having opposed the Bill and later the Left parties applying their own pressures.

While the 'Tiger lobby', as the group was called, was hushed by respective party elders, Brinda Karat of the CPM was not so easily pacified. The Left insisted upon and won significant concessions from the government including change in the title of the Bill to include non-tribal forest dwellers as well.

The Bill, according to Tribal Affairs Minister P R Kyndiah, was a "recognition and vesting of forest rights in forest dwelling scheduled areas."

"It lays down simple procedures for recognising and vesting forest rights to forest dwelling scheduled tribes, and also adequate safeguards to avoid further encroachment of forests," said Kyndiah.

Jual Oram of the BJP and part of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Bill demanded that the Tribal Bill be put into the ninth schedule of the constitution to make it immune from judicial review.

He, along with Sandeep Dikshit and Madhusudan Mistry of the Congress said that Non-Timber Forest Produce like stone, sand and bamboo be added to the list minor forest produce allowed to be taken out of the forest for sale by tribals.

Biju Ban Riyan of the CPM raised an important point about the difficulty of establishing land rights in the absence of revenue records.

He also raised doubts about the sincerity of the environment and forest ministry, the nodal agency for the Bill, to look after the interest of tribals.