Tribal Welfare Minister Govind Gawde with South Goa Collector Ruchika Katyal, officials and beneficiaries of sanads under the Forest Right Act.
Photo Credits: Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
With the pendency of cases under the Forest Rights Act touching a whopping 10,000, the government has finally decided to engage a private agency to conduct survey and spot verification of the claims made by the applicants.
Tribal Welfare Minister Govind Gawde informed that the agency to be roped in by the Revenue Department will be asked to complete the survey within a year’s time so as to give relief to the beneficiaries under the Act.
The minister on Friday allocated around 27 sanads to the beneficiaries, both tribal and non-tribal applicants, taking the number of sanads issued till date under the Forest Rights Act to 46. Around 70 more sanads will be issued by November end, he added.
Conceding that thousands of claims under the Forest Rights Act are pending at different stages of disposal, Gawde said the government has gone in for private agency since government surveyors are overburdened with routine work. “Most of the cases are pending for disposal because of survey and spot verifications. Of the 10,127 pending cases, the total number of individual claims is pegged at 9759 and 278 community claims. Spot verification of 4063 cases has been complete”, he said.
The minister said a lot of time is consumed on demarcation of land and conducting spot verification. “The situation is further aggravated for want of full-fledged surveyors”, he added.
Saying that a host of reasons might have left the claims pending though the Act came into force in 2002, Gawde said instead of going into the reasons for the slow pace of implementation, the time has come to move ahead and focus on the future.
“The Act is not only applicable to the Scheduled Tribes but all the people who have been dwelling on forest and government land. About 9758 individual and 278 community claims were received under this Act. Out of which spot verification of 4043 claims have been done and 1614 claims are approved at gram sabhas. 615 claims have been cleared by deputy collectors. Till date 46 beneficiaries have been issued Sanads, Gaude said.
He added: “Participation of people in gram sabhas is very much important to solve these cases. As the participation of people in most of the gram sabhas is below 50 per cent, the administration is trying to give relaxation and solve the problem.
South Goa Collector Ruchika Katyal said every effort is made by the district administration to solve all the cases and in near future maximum cases will be cleared.
Tribal Welfare Director Triveni Velip welcomed. Deputy Conservators of Forest, Santosh Fadte and Prem Kumar, and Deputy Collector Pradip Naik were present on the occasion.
