Adivasis will stage a protest outside the Balle Range Forest Office from October 21 to 23 demanding implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act and to protest against atrocities on tribal people.
If the government did not show commitment to ensuring that they got their rights under the Act, the Adivasis would pass resolutions in Gram Sabha meetings to determine their rights. They would ban visits to forests by ‘outsiders’, they said.
Speaking to presspersons here, general secretary of the Karnataka Adivasi Rakshana Parishat, M. Krishnaiah, said that Adivasis in the State were suffering. He said that over 4,000 claims had gone from H.D. Kote taluk seeking land grants under the Forest Rights Act, but nothing had materialised so far.
Applications were submitted from more than 90 hadis seeking community rights, but to no avail, Mr. Krishnaiah alleged. False cases were foisted on Adivasis collecting minor forest produce in Mysore district in the last three years. Though every Adivasi family had the right to claim four hectares of land under the Forest Rights Act, many were given grants ranging from just one gunta to five guntas, which was unfair.
Mr. Krishnaiah alleged that though Rs. 4.9 crore had been granted by the Centre for the development of Adivasis, it had not reached them so far.
He accused a representative of a non-governmental organisation based in Hunsur of misleading the Forest Department by stating that they were violating forest conservation norms.
Organising secretary of the parishat B. Kavera, president of the parishat’s Mysore district unit Vijayakumar and president of the Budakattu Krishikara Sangha (BKS), H.D. Kote, Kenchaiah, spoke.
