MARGAO: Tribal Welfare Minister Govind Gaude on Friday announced that 70 claims will be settled and that sanads will be issued under the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 by November 30.
He was speaking at the function held on Friday to distribute Titles for Forest Land under Occupation that’s recognised under the Forest’s Rights Act. 27 beneficiaries were issued sanads at the function at Mathany Saldanha Administrative Complex, here.
Gaude stressed that the State government has effectively pursued this Forest Rights Act to clear all the pending cases. He gave credit to the Central government for bringing this Act.
He further added that this act is not applicable only to Scheduled Tribes but all the people, who were connected with the forest and government land.
“9,758 individual and 278 community claims were received under this act. “Out of which spot verification of 4,043 claims is done and 1,614 claims are approved by gram sabhas. 615 claims are cleared by Deputy Collectors. Till date, 46 beneficiaries have been issued sanads,” Gaude added.
“Demarcation, survey and spot verification of the land takes time and hence the process to appoint surveyors by the government is at its final stage, which will help and ensure speedy clearing of cases,” he added.
He further urged the Panchayat level committees to take gram sabhas and clear the cases at initial stage and forward it to the District level.
“Participation of people in gram sabhas is very much important to solve these cases. As the participation of people in maximum gram sabhas is below 50 per cent, the Administration is trying to give further relaxation (in respect to the cases) and solve the problem,” he added.
He further said that farmers and environmentalists should not bow down before anyone as they are the backbone of the State and country.
District Collector South Ruchika Katyal said, “Every effort is made by the district administration to solve all the cases of the Forest Rights Act and in near future maximum will be cleared.”
