Raman pleads for regularising encorachment by tribals

New Delhi, Dec 9 (UNI) Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh today sought urgent intervention of the Centre in regularising encroachment on forest land prior to 1980, involving 54,000 tribal families.

Pointing out that these were the areas where naxalite activities had grown over the years, Dr Singh said that the matter had been pending with the Centre for more than a decade.'' ''I sincerely urge the Central Govenment to settle this matter at the earliest,'' he said, in his address at the 52nd meeting of the National Development Council (NDC) here.

Dr Singh said the required compensatory afforestation had been completed.

Although the approach paper talked about the strategy of inclusive growth, it had not properly addressed the critical issues concerning tribal population, he said.

The Chief Minister pointed out that 60 per cent of the area in Chhattisgarh was under the Fifth Schedule with tribals constituting 32 per cent of its population and 10 out of 16 districts being affected by left wing extremism.

''These areas were low in all human development indices,'' he said, adding a sizeable number of tribals was dependent on minor forest produce for their livelihood.

While the State Government had undertaken the responsibility to procure major forest produce and also distributing bonus, it had not been possible to extend the same facility to minor forest produce because of inadequate resources.

''In order to achieve the goal of inclusive growth, the Central Government must come up with a comprehensive policy on procurement of Minor Forest Produce on support price as in case of agriculture produce,'' he asserted.

Reiterating his demand for inclusion of all scheduled tribe families in the Below Poverty Line under the Antodaya Anna Yojana, Dr Singh said so far only 30 per cent of the BPL familites were getting the beneift, though the state had a substantially high percentage of tribal population and most of them were living below poverty line.

''The incidence of malnutrition among the tribasl population is also quite high,'' he pointed out.

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