New solutions for the people

When forest rights were not given to the tribal populations residing in it, government took over forests and chased away the tribals as they were considered as encroaching on forest lands. But the Forests rights Act,2006 gave tribal people rights over their own land. The Act gave the people rights over holding deeds for the land they had cultivated. Local governments interpreted the law differently and tribals were not given rights. Almost always there was ambiguity in finding out which piece of land belonged to whom and in this pretext the tribal population was denied rights. But that has changed now. Under the Act, "gram sabhas" certified on which families cultivated which land in 2005 and land deed documents were forwarded to the state government. State government (Gujrat had rejected 128 thousand out of 182 thousand claims) rejected claims as exact locations of lands were arbitrary; even if claimed lands were given, it would be a small part of land. Action Research in Community Health and Development (ARCH) which was a non government organization had appealed to High Court saying that the claims were based on "panchnamas" or case records or official receipts or satellite imaging from Goggle or National Remote Sensing Agency. These were not accepted. But now new solution has emerged since old surveying methods were not precise, GPS was employed using hand held devices which costs only 12000 Rupees. Using this hand held device, one's land could be precisely measured by walking around one's plot of land and marking it, a map was immediately made of his land. This map was put on top of satellite image map and his land was marked genuine. Now tribes did not have to depend on a government department to tell them which was their land. When the tribals went with these supporting maps, their land claims were restored to them. Now forest department allows these tribes to bring in tractors to plough their fields. The rights of the tribes were realized by successfully adopting this new solution to their problem. Digitization of land records can help a great deal if done quickly.