Tribal groups stage protest in Bhopal over land registration issue

Bhopal, Aug.3 (ANI): Hundreds of tribals converged in Bhopal on Monday to stage a protest rally to highlight administrative authorities' apathy in registration of their land.

Hundreds of tribals belonging to various organisations from across Madhya Pradesh State converged here during the rally and carried placards and banners to demand early registration of their land.

Protestors lamented that they were facing a lot of problems due to negligence of authorities.

"We have submitted our papers with the Forest Rights Committee, we have also forwarded our claim to Block Level committee through our village committee, but the Block Level Committee has done nothing...villagers were not even informed about the status of the claim and they don't know whether their claim is accepted or rejected. Villagers are unable to file the claim in the district level committee. Besides this, villagers are also facing problem in receiving caste certificates, the forest officials are taking back the land from the occupants. We organise this protest against all these things. A delegation of our leaders also met the governor over this issue," said Rajkumar Shah, one of the protestors.

"The government promised us that in the year 2005 we will get ...but the authorities are neither registering the land in our name...... the authorities are also not accepting claim either," said Sugli Bai, another protestor.

Madhya Pradesh is home to millions of tribals.

The Government of India has passed the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The law concerns the rights of forest dwelling communities to land and other resources denied to them over decades as a result of the continuance of old forest laws in India. (ANI)