5 months ago
1
Questions and doubts person been raised implicit the legalities of the relocation of 339 families from Kali Tiger Reserve (KTR) successful the State, based connected documentary grounds and authoritative replies successful the Assembly.
Though the relocation has been described arsenic voluntary and touted arsenic a model, activists find it intriguing that applications of 99 families who had filed for claims nether the Forest Rights Act (FRA) had been rejected.
The information that the Forest Department had rejected their applications for restoration of accepted rights nether FRA indicates that they could not beryllium their bona fides and hence were encroachers, reason the activists.
It was pointed retired that successful the reply to a question raised by Abhay Patil, MLA, successful the Legislative Assembly connected December 18, Forest, Ecology and Environment Minister Eshwar B. Khandre stated that 339 families had been relocated from villages and hamlets wrong the limits of 10 gram panchayats betwixt 2022 and 2025. He besides revealed that claims of 99 families nether the FRA had either been rejected oregon were inactive pending. The authorities had paid a compensation to the tune of ₹12.17 crore.
This has perturbed activists, who claimed that specified a casual attack successful identifying the genuineness of claims undermines the rights of tribal persons. Besides, outgo of compensation without anterior designation and colony of wood rights is simply a usurpation of the FRA, said the activists, who pointed retired that adjacent relocation without anterior designation of wood rights and informed consent of the gram sabha is explicitly prohibited by law.
‘’Though the authorities has been asked to furnish gram sabha resolutions for the play of relocation, the Forest Minister allegedly produced lone a azygous solution dating backmost to 2014 from Ulavi Gram Panchayat — an 11-year-old papers unrelated to the relocation play successful question,’’ said the activists.
Stating that specified glaring violations are not isolated, activists pointed retired that betwixt 2020 and 2025, 498 families had been relocated from assorted gram panchayats, including Anshi, Ulavi, Kateli, Gangoda, Bajarkunang, Nandigadde, Badakan-Shirada, Kadra, and Pradhani, dispersed crossed Dandeli, Joida, and Karwar taluks of Uttara Kannada district. But accusation obtained nether the Right to Information Act, 2005, from aggregate gram panchayats has revealed that nary gram sabha meetings were held during the relocation period.
Furnishing documents from circumstantial gram sabhas to buttress their point, the activists person alleged that determination was a systemic disregard for the instrumentality and person sought scrutiny of the project.
