Press Trust Of India
New Delhi, Jan 12: Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram is merely a mute spectator these days as Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently passed two important ordinances such as Land Acquisition Act and Mines Minerals Development Regulation (MMDR) Act without taking his ministry’s views into account.
According to a ministry source, the two ordinances Land Acquisition Act and MMDR Act, which have a direct bearing on tribal rights, have been compromised as his ministry was not kept in the loop.
Similarly, the ministry of environment, forests and climate change October 28 had issued an order for divesting Gram Sabhas of their powers and allowing district collectors to clear change, if any, in forest land use.
Recently, tribal affairs ministry wrote a letter to the MoEF stating that any attempt to dilute the FRA Act will increase Naxal activities into LWE- affected states.
Acres of forest will be lost. It is the Gram Sabha under the FRA Act, which is competent to initiate this process. Under FRA Act 2006, Gram Sabhas are empowered to give consent for diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes like setting up of industrial projects—a problem area for industries in India.
The order eases the way for corporates and forecloses the need for them to get consent from village councils which in most cases denies permission.
Continuing with its business-friendly regulatory changes, the Modi government has brought in a key change diminishing the applicability of watershed Forest Rights Act (FRA) for seeking statutory forest clearance for projects.
The move would ease the approval process for projects coming up near green areas not recorded as forests by the British and not having tribal population since 2001. However, it fails to recognize rights of other forest dwellers.