War of words escalates over forest right act 2006 between government and opposition

New Delhi: Rebutting Congress’ allegations of diluting the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which it called “anti-tribal”, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav categorically said the Narendra Modi- led government is committed to protecting the rights of tribals.

He however said, “Forest Conservation Rule, 2022 are “reformative”  with an objective to streamline the process of approval under the Act, and enable the parallel processing under other Acts and Rules including FRA, 2006″.

On Sunday former Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh alleged that “Now, in a new set of Rules issued very recently, the Modi government has allowed for forest rights to be settled after final approval for forest clearances has been granted by the Centre. Obviously, this has been done in the name of ‘ease of doing business’ for a chosen few. But it will end the ‘ease of living for the vast many.

The Congress leader also said, This destroys the very purpose of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, he said. Once forest clearance is granted, everything else becomes a mere formality and almost inevitably no claims will be recognised and settled, he added.

Countering the allegations Bhupender Yadav in a series of tweets, said that “The allegation is an ill-informed attempt to show that the Rules don’t care about the provisions of other laws. The government under Shri Narendra Modiji remains committed to protecting the rights of Adivasis.”

“You are trying to insinuate a problem where none exists. There is no dilution of provisions of FRA as being incorrectly interpreted since fulfilment and compliance of FRA 2006 is specifically mentioned in the Rules before State issues orders of diversion” Yadav said.

Over the charges of making the Gram Sabha irrelevant and the new rules go against the 2015 note of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Bhupender Yadav said, It is very much there and well taken care of under the provisions of the respective Acts.

“The fulfillment and compliance of FRA 2006 is an independent process, which can be done at any stage by the States, but must be completed before granting approval for land diversion,” he said.

In 2009, Ramesh, who was then the Union environment minister, introduced a rule that no clearance for diversion of forests would be considered unless the rights under the FRA, 2006 were settled. This included acquiring a gram sabha NOC. This was later included as a part of the Forest Conservation Rules in 2015 under the Act.

On June 28, the union environment, forest and climate change ministry notified the Forest Conservation Rules 2022 to shift onto state governments the union’s responsibility of ensuring that the rights of tribals to their traditional forestlands are recognised and their consent is taken before their forests are chopped down.

The new rules allow the union government to permit the clearing of a forest before consulting the people living in it, forcing the hand of the concerned state government to secure consent from tribal and other forest-dwelling communities.

Earlier, the union government was required to verify the consent of the forest dwellers and ensure recognition of their rights over the forestland before approving handovers for private projects.