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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Khunti resists new forest act by Suman K Shrivastava

Khunti resists new forest act by Suman K Shrivastava

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published Published on Aug 24, 2010   modified Modified on Aug 24, 2010


The Centre’s sunshine law — Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, — has failed to find favour in Khunti district, the birthplace of tribal icon Birsa Munda.

Villagers in the district said the new act is irrelevant as the Chotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act, 1908, framed by the British following the Birsa movement, ensures more rights to the tribals than what the new law promises.

Little wonder then that only 166 claims have been filed with the gram sabhas under the act. Of them, 16 leases have been granted, while the rest are still pending at various levels.

The opposition to the act became apparent when four members of a panel constituted by the Union forest and environment ministry to study the factors aiding and impeding implementation of the act, were told at a public meeting at Chalkad to stall implementation of the act in Mundari-Khuntkatti villages.

The CNT Act defines Mundari-Khuntkatti villages as those set up by the Mundas after clearing forests following their arrival in Chotanagpur.

The majority of the 884 villages in the district are Mundari-Khuntkatti villages. The main source of income for the population is agriculture and forests and the district is famous for producing lac.

According to convener of Mundari-Khuntkatti Parishad Alestar Bodra, who submitted a petition to the committee in this regard, the Mundas had secured the rights over everything including rivers, water resources and hills within the village periphery. “They became the real landlords. They are not rayats like other non-tribal farmers. They still don’t pay rent to the state. Instead, they simply pay cess,” he said.

He added that a petition was filed in the Jharkhand High Court in 2006 seeking the court’s intervention to quash all laws framed by the government over the years which took away the rights of tribals granted under the CNT Act.

“We filed the writ even before the new act came into force in mid 2008 in Jharkhand. We have urged the district administration to wait for the verdict before implementing the act,” he said.

While the new act states that a dweller is entitled to lease rights over the land he or she had been cultivating for years, the Mundari-Khuntkatti system ensures proprietary rights over everything that is available in the village.

Vasavi Kiro, one of the members of the committee, told The Telegraph that it was a unique problem coming in the way of executing the act. “We will ask the government to exempt Khuntkatti villages from the purview of the act,” she added.

Khunti district welfare officer Parma Prasad Singh also admitted the problem. “The Khunkattidars feel if they accept the new law they will lose their rights as guaranteed by the CNT Act. So we have stopped our exercise in these villages. Instead, we are concentrating on non-Khuntkatti villages,” he added.

The Union ministry of environment and forests had constituted a 19-member committee in April this year to study the implementation of the act, and the factors aiding and impeding its implementation. Former bureaucrat and member of National Advisory Council N.C. Saxena heads the committee.

The four members of the committee — Sharach Chandra Lele, a Bangalore-based environmentalist, Vasavi Kiro, a member of National Alliance for Women, Jharkhand, Roma, a UP-based activist and Ramdhanlal Meena, a retired IAS officer —visited the state from July 15 to July 19. Their field visits covered villages in Khunti, Bokaro and Dumka districts.


The Telegraph, 24 August, 2010, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100824/jsp/frontpage/story_12846824.jsp


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