PANAJI: The state government has set December 2017 as the deadline to settle the 10,000-odd claims under the Forest Rights (Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Recognition) Act in the state.
Minister for Tribal Welfare Govind Gaude, who held a review meeting on Monday at the South Goa Collectorate on implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), said that the government has set December as the deadline to settle all the claims received under the Act. He said that he has directed the officials to speed up the process to implement the FRA by the end of this year.
As per records, under the FRA, the government has received 10,040 claims from tribal people of which 9,671 are individual claims, 356 community claims while 12 are facility claims. Quepem, Canacona, Sanguem, Dharbandora, Ponda and Sattari talukas are covered under the Act.
Two districts, seven sub divisions and 158 villages have been listed for the implementation of the Act by the department of tribal welfare, a nodal agency for implementation of FRA.
The state government started the process for implementation of the Forest Rights Act in 2011 by notifying State Level Monitoring Committee and district and sub-division level committees. Over 130 Forest Rights Committees have been constituted at the village level and they started the process of receiving claims from October 2012.
The Minister said that the government has fully focussed itself to resolve the issue of Forest Rights Act, which is one of the major demands of the Scheduled Tribes community in the state. He said that the state government is fully committed to grant ownership rights to the tribals and other traditional forest dwellers, who are living in the forest areas, under the Act.