Tribals demand acceptance of JPC report on Forest Bill

New Delhi, July 25 (UNI) Campaign for Survival and Dignity today demanded the acceptance of the Joint Parliamentary Committee report on the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill 2005 saying it was pro-poor.

For the first time since independence, the Centre last year finally responded to the unrest, violence and protest in forest areas and drafted the Bill on the matter, the CSD, an umbrella organisation of tribal and forest dwellers' organisations, said in a statement.

This was promptly attacked through a press campaign ''engineered'' by the Environment Ministry supposedly because it would 'distribute' forest lands and wipe out forests, it said and added ''this is entirely false. The Bill aims to recognise those who are already using land or other resources, often for generations.'' A badly diluted version of the Bill was therefore tabled in Parliament and sent to the JPC, which tabled its report on May 23, saying that the Bill in its present form would defeat its own purpose and encourage corruption and misuse, it stated.

The CSD, therefore, demanded that the JPC report be accepted because it was pro-poor and respected the principles of democracy.

Accusing the government of being anti-democratic and anti-poor, the organisation claimed that on the one hand it opposed encroachment and forest destruction but on the other hand almost six lakh hectares of forest land had been quitely handed over for mining and setting up industries in the last five years.

The CSD warned of a nationwide agitation if their demands were not met.

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