A delegation of Members of Maharashtra State Legislature from the Tribal Areas of the State met Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and handed over a memorandum at Raj Bhavan, Mumbai on Wednesday.

The delegation led by the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Narhari Zirwal demanded the removal of discrepancies in the implementation of the Forest Rights Act and effective implementation of the PESA Act.

The delegation, which had members of all parties and non-Tribal MLAs as well, further demanded the inclusion of certain villages that have been currently left out, in the PESA areas.

Members of State legislature Dharmaraobaba Atram (Aheri), Shrinivas Vanga (Palghar), Smt Manjula Gavit (Kudashi, Dhule), Nitin Pawar (Kalwan), Vinod Nikole (Dahanu), Sunil Bhusara (Vikramgad), Rajesh Patil (Belwadi, Palghar), Dr Kiran Lahamate (Rajur, Akole), Rajkumar Patel (Amravati) and others were present.

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Maharashtra’s FRA record

The Scheduled Tribe community constitutes more than 10 percent of the state population. Over 17 of 36 districts are designated as tribal districts to facilitate special provisions for the forest dwellers.

Yet, a large number of tribal population is still waiting to receive the benefits of FRA barring a few districts like Gadchiroli. CPI (M) leader Vinod Nikole, the legislator of Dahanu (Palghar) said, "While most land claims gather dust in the government offices, many people have got just 1-3 acres or even less as against the five acres land they are entitled to under the FRA. Besides, they are forcibly evicted for large projects like Bullet train and Wadhwan Port.

As per the Union government data, Maharashtra has received close to 3.6 lakh individual claims of forest land by tribal farmers and labourers under the FRA by January 2020. Of which only 1.5 lakh claims have been cleared which is about 44 percent of the applications.

Other Tribal concentrated States like Odisha and Kerala have cleared more than ⅔ of the individual claims.

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In terms of community forest rights, Maharashtra seems to be ahead with giving clearance to 7,000 applications out of 12,000-odd received by January 2020.

Governor’s Role

In Scheduled Areas declared so under the Fifth Schedule of Indian Constitution, the governor of the state has special responsibilities including issuing directives to the state government and limiting the effect of acts of the central or state legislature on the Schedule Area.

On the other hand, in Scheduled Areas declared so under the Sixth Schedule, the emphasis is on self-rule; tribal communities are granted considerable autonomy, including powers to tribal communities to make laws and receive central government funds for social and infrastructure development.

To enable local control, the role of the Governor and the State are subject to significant limitations in Sixth Schedule areas.