Ranchi
As he launched the Abua Beer Dishom campaign, which is part of the preparations for celebrating the 23rd Statehood Day on November 15 that also happens to be tribal icon Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary, Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Monday directed officials to implement the long-neglected endeavour in all seriousness.
What should have started soon after the creation of Jharkhand is being taken up now, he said while addressing the gathering of officials.
Under the campaign, forest dwellers, especially tribals, will be given land titles to make a living under Individual Forest Rights. The provisions of Community Forest Rights too will be carefully looked into.
On this occasion, Soren also launched a website and a mobile application to enable the officials, gram sabha functionaries and even commoners to smoothly carry out their work with transparency.
A special session with the Deputy Commissioners of the districts and Divisional Forest Officers too was held at the main secretariat in Project Bhawan. Senior officials, including Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh, briefed them about how this mission should be carried forward.
If translated literally, Abua means Our, Beer means Forest and Dishom means Country. Loosely translated, the meaning of this campaign in English comes to Our Forest Homeland.
Incidentally, Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda too hails from Jharkhand and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) monitors the execution of Forest Rights Act across the country.
Of late, Munda and other senior functionaries at the Central level have been expressing concern at the poor execution of this law in Jharkhand, even though it basically aimed at the welfare of poor tribals living in remote areas.
In their address, Soren and other senior officials pointed towards the lapses over the years and urged DCs and DFOs, in particular, to take corrective measures. They pointed out that if States like Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra could excel in this area, then there was no reason for Jharkhand to continue lagging behind.
The Chief Minister and other senior officials also briefed the DCs and DFOs about the restart of the “Sarkar Aapke Dwar” campaign. Under this campaign, the official machinery will be camping in villages to solve the issues of commoners. Both these campaigns will be “formally ” launched at a public function on November 15.
If successful, these campaigns would be playing a vital role in mobilising Soren’s tribal vote bank ahead of the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections next year.
WHAT IS FOREST RIGHTS ACT?
The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act -2006, is commonly known as Forest Rights Act (FRA). The FRA seeks to recognize and vest the Forest Rights and Rights for occupation of forest land on 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. Forest dwellers are among the country’s poorest people. For many tribal people and other forest communities, forests are the source of livelihood, identity, customs and traditions. However, their rights on their ancestral land and their habitats has not been adequately recognized despite these being integral to their very survival and sustainability of the forest eco-system. This historical injustice needed correction and, therefore, the Government enacted the Forest Rights Act. The Act came into operation with the notification of Rules on 01-01-2008 for carrying out the provisions of the Act.
