Raipur, 30 May .The lives of forest dwellers of Bijapur district are getting better due to the individual, community and forest resource rights granted on forest land under the Forest Rights Act. Not only, the forest dwellers have been able to do harmless farming on forest land through the individual land rights, but they are also taking advantage of housing, animal husbandry and agriculture related schemes. With the community rights gained through gram sabhas, they are now able to use the minor products of forests, pastures, reservoirs, biodiversity and their traditional knowledge to raise their community standard of living. Along with this, the Chhattisgarh government has also implemented the provision of, the so far neglected but most important, right to forest resource under the Forest Rights Act, in the district with priority. This has given them the right to complete conservation, management and regeneration of water-forest-land.
Under the Forest Rights Act, on the instructions of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, forest rights-letters have been distributed to the forest dwellers occupying forest land in Chhattisgarh since December 13, 2005. The forest dwellers holding forest rights are able to use the land under their rights to fulfill their agricultural, farm, housing or living needs. A total of 9 thousand 617 individual forest rights papers have been distributed in the district. Of these, 2179 individual forest rights papers have been provided since December 2018. The forest dwellers have got possession of 13062.20 hectares of forest land through individual forest rights papers. In this way, an average of 1.35 hectares of land has been acquired per family. Similarly, 2243 Community Forest Rights Papers have been distributed to Gram Sabhas. Communities have got rights related to minor forest produce, reservoir, pasture, biodiversity, traditional knowledge of forest dwellers etc. under Community Forest Rights. With this, the community has got the rights of 62518 hectares of land through Gram Sabhas.
283 Forest resource rights have been conferred in the district by giving priority to the right to forest resources, the so far neglected important provision in the Forest Rights Act. In the earlier years, no right to community forest resources was conferred on the forest dwellers or the gram sabhas. For the first time, the state government has given full rights to the original residents for complete management, conservation and revival of their water,forest and land. The community in the district has been handed over 1,91,550.152 hectares of forest land under the right to 283 community forest resources received through gram sabhas. Under this right, the forest dwellers have got the right to complete management, use and protection of forests.
