Bhubaneswar: Adding a feather to its cap, Orissa has become the first state in converging anti-poverty schemes with Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006.
This was revealed at a review meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi at a video conference from Delhi Friday. Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi participated in it from the Secretariat’s conference hall.
The state has dovetailed various poverty eradication schemes with FRA for enhancing livelihood options of the FRA beneficiaries. These beneficiaries were also brought under social security and food security net.
So far, over 2,30,000 beneficiaries have been covered under various schemes like Mo Kudia, IAY, Mo Pokhari, land development under MGNREGS, National Bamboo Mission, National Horticulture Mission, marketing of minor forest produce, etc.
As per available data, 149,327 households have been provided IAY, 3,818 Mo Kudia, 3,549 Mo Pokhari, while 54,099 households have been covered under land development with support from MGNREGS, 8,776 families have been brought under National Horticulture Mission, 286 families into Bamboo Mission, and 13,228 households have been covered under various other programmes.
The state continues to remain in the top position at national level both in terms of the number of title rights distributed and the percentage of titles distributed over the number of claims raised, said SC and ST Development Secretary Surendra Kumar, who was also present at the meeting. He said about 406,745 individual family titles and 5,942 community rights involving an area of about 6,09,553 acres and 3,27,171 acres respectively were distributed under the Act till June, 2017.
Of the total titles, 18,402 individual title certificates were distributed to the particularly vulnerable trial group (PVTG) families involving an area of 31,233 acres, he said, adding, these PVTG families are presently residing in 17 micro project areas of the state under which they have been also covered under various schemes.
The claim rejection ratio in the state is less than that of the national average. According to sources, the rejection rate in Orissa is around 24 per cent while the national level rejection rate is 45 per cent.
The state government has adopted a mechanism for suo moto appeal of all rejection cases. The cases rejected at village level are suo moto taken to appeal for hearing and decision at sub-divisional level committee (SDC), the sources said.
Similarly, the cases rejected at the level of SDC are automatically taken up for appeal at the District level Committee (DLC) constituted under the chairmanship of the collector. The decision of the DLC becomes final.
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