Team News Riveting
Bhopal, November 28
After the recommendation of the Gram Panchayat and Sub-Divisional Forest Rights Committee, approval was issued by the District Level Forest Rights Committee for claims of habitat rights (rights to natural habitat) of the Baiga community of three Gram Panchayats Kanharikala, Changaria and Medhatal of District Panchayat Bichiya of Mandla district.
Habitat rights are being given to scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. In all the three panchayats, the extension of boundary and Khasra has been fixed for demographic determinants, purpose for economic/living production, cultural/religious, medicinal and tuber root etc. for the people of Baiga community.
In all, 541 Baiga families of these gram panchayats have been recognized for providing habitat rights in 664 hectares of forest land and 435 hectares of revenue land (big and small trees) in the forest, which equals to a total of 1099 hectares of land.
Places have been marked for access and storage of medicines according to their medicinal knowledge for the treatment of various diseases/natural outbreaks according to Baiga traditions, access to sites of cultural beliefs, access to resources, wood obtained from forest/revenue forest areas, minor-forest produce, non-agriculture for ancillary purposes. transportation for food, pasture, medicine, firewood collection and access to resources, access and use of places of cultural-religious purpose, fishing in rivers, drains within the boundaries of the village in a traditional way, for transportation and access to food etc. resources for livelihood., in the areas approved by the District Committee, for the people of Baiga community of Kanharikala, Changaria and Medtal.
Action on the proposal/claim of Habitat Rights was first completed by Gram Sabha and sub-division level Forest Rights Committee. The proposal was sent to the District Level Forest Rights Committee along with the recommendation for claim redressal. The proposal was reviewed and discussed in detail by the district level committee.
In this, all the information related to the claim was read out to the Baiga community of the concerned gram panchayats and the public representatives present. The vision map prepared by the people of Baiga community after agreeing on all the facts was also examined before the committee and site verification was done on the map.
After the consent of all the present members of the committee, the representative of the sub-division level committee and the Baiga community, it was unanimously approved to accept the claim of habitat rights according to the conditions set by the district level committee.
Prior to this, habitat rights have been provided in Amwar of Mawai Janpad in Mandla district. As per the government’s intention, the real rights of water, forest and land are being given to the Baiga community. By getting the habitat rights, the Baiga community will be able to follow their ancient traditions in the forests without any worry like before.
