Establishing claims of tribals on their land is the essential prerequisite for effective implementation of any land reform, tribal affairs minister Kishore Chandra Deo told FE.
He clarified that for the implementation of the proposed land acquisition law or even the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulatory Authority Bill, claims of tribals on their land have to be recognised first.
?The case with tribal populations is that their pre-existing rights, before even the British times, have not been recognised yet, so how can any negotiation on acquisition and compensation take place?,? he wondered. Deo said the Forest Act of 1927 had gone to the extent of terming tribal forest dwellers as ?encroachers?. ?After that the UPA (government) has enacted the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which recognises these rights to community land too. The implementation of this Act is still a work in progress,? he added.
?Therefore, first recognise their rights. (Only) then comes the question of green concerns, technological safeguards on mining and even the question of compensation,? he said.
Deo said that while he was still reviewing the progress of the Forest Rights Act implementation, it was pretty much a state government initiative and that till now the progress was patchy at best. ?Some grey areas are there,? he admitted. Among the states, Orissa was the state with the best record so far, but ?that has not prevented the state government from being challenged in the Posco case?, he added.
?In some states, ?pattas? (land rights) have been handed over for areas under the Joint Forest Management (JFM), which is a violation of the letter and spirit of the law as rights are recognised on community land, but not on JFM land,? he said.