19, Aug 2015

Staff Reporter
BHUBANESWAR, August 19, 2015
With the forest dwellers, especially tribals, complaining about apathetic approach of government machinery in recognising their rights under the Forest Rights Act, two special rapporteurs of the National Human Rights Commission have begun their field visits in Odisha’s Kandhamal district .
NHRC special rapporteur (tribal issues) P. P. Mathur and special rapporteur (West Bengal, Odisha and Andaman Nicobar Islands) Damodar Sarangi started interacting with villagers to get first hand information about FRA implementation.
The team is also scheduled to meet district administration to know reason behind weak implementation of the FRA. The Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), which had spearheaded campaign for enactment of FRA, alleged that district level committees regularly ignored proposals forwarded by Gram Sahbas.
As per the report of the State Level Monitoring Committee, by May 2015, as many as 60,346 Individual Forest Right (IFR) claims have been filed at the Gram Sabha level and 57,657 IFR titles issued over 87,227 acres of forest land.