The Odisha government has so far granted 4.09 lakh individual titles and community titles under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, a state minister said on Friday.
"While 4,03,760 individual titles have been distributed, 5,891 community titles have been settled under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006," Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development Minister Lal Bihari Himirika told the assembly.
The state government has settled these claims by end of January this year. It had received a total of 6.37 lakh claims, he added.
The minister said the government received 7,760 applications for individual titles in 2015-16.
During 2015-16, 28,529 Scheduled Tribes families were provided with FRA titles.
The Forest Rights Act provides legal rights to those who live in the forest and are solely dependent on it for their livelihood.
The idea was to empower forest dwellers, and by doing so, make conservation of forests a natural outcome, said informed sources.
The minimum eligibility for an individual or a community to get a title is 75 years of residence on forest land, totally dependant on forest produce for livelihood, the sources added.
--IANS
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