Gujarat not tribal friendly?

Having provided forest land rights to just one in five tribals, Gujarat ranks a poor 12th in issuing forest land rights to the tribal population.

As against 1,91,592 claims received for seeking forest land rights, the government distributed title deeds among 39,784 applicants, i.e. 20.76% of the claimants. This was after The Forest Rights Act 2006 was enacted and its rules framed in the year 2007.

Of the total claims received by Gujarat government, 1,82,869 claims were made by individuals, while 8,723 were collective claims. The government approved 38,176 individual claims and 1,608 collective claims, while rejecting the remaining 1,51,808 claims.

The tedious process, wherein the claimants had to submit a large number of documents, was one of the reasons for the low approval of claims for land rights in the state. As of January 1, 2012, Tripura led the way as far as giving forest land rights to tribals was concerned.

The north-eastern state received 1.79 lakh claims for forest land, of which 1.19 lakh tribals were issued title deeds, i.e. 66.48% claimants were given land rights.

Odisha was next with 59.69%, having given forest land rights to 2.94 lakh tribals out of 4.93 claimants. Kerala issued land rights to 55.50% of the claimants, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 50.77%.

Rajasthan (46.76%), Chhattisgarh (43.78%), Madhya Pradesh (34.59%), Jharkhand (33.87%), Maharashtra (30.84%), Assam (27.49%) and West Bengal (21.17%) ranked ahead of Gujarat in giving land rights to tribal population.

Gujarat, however, fared better than Uttar Pradesh (19.16%), Tamil Nadu (17.04%), Karnataka (3.99%) and Bihar (0.93%).