Bhubaneswar: Seeking Centre's support in
providing water to tribal lands under the Forest Rights Act,
2006, Orissa government on Wednesday said it had already distributed
land documents to over 55,000 tribal families.
This was stated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the
conference of chief ministers on 'Implementation Status of
Schedule Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers
(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006', in New Delhi,
officials said here.
"It may not be enough to only confer legal rights to the
tribals over the land," Patnaik said adding that steps should
be initiated to provide irrigation facilities and improve
productivity of these lands.
He said the state government had formed a Watershed
Mission to improve productivity of rainfed lands and wanted
centre's support to this programme so that it could be
extended to the development of the lands where there are
tribal settlements.
Stating that tribals constitute almost a quarter of the
state's population, Patnaik said Orissa had the unique
distinction of having 62 different types of scheduled tribes
and 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PTGs).
He said the state government had undertaken several
steps to ensure all-round development of the scheduled
tribes including the PTGs.
The initiatives include setting up of 6000 ST girls
hostels, enhancement of scholarship for ST boys and girls,
establishment of 19 educational complexes for promotion of
girls education among the PTGs, establishment of one BEd
training college in Kandhamal and setting up of 11 Ekalavya
Model residential schools, he said.
Claiming that the state had achieved substantial progress
on implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, Patnaik said
out of more than 3 lakh cases filed by tribals with the Forest
Rights Committees (FRCs) about 2.64 lakh cases had already
been verified as on October 31, 2009.
The district level committees had approved about 68,000
cases out of which Certificates of Title had been distributed
among more than 55,000 cases.
About 4,000 Certificates of Title had been distributed
among the PTGs out of about 16,000 PTG families in the state.
Bureau Report