Minister for Forests B. Ramanath Rai on Wednesday said that a team of senior officials from the Forest Department would visit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh soon to study the successful implementation of the Forest Rights Act by those States.
“They have given title deeds to about 80 percent of tribals in forest areas and our government wants to replicate the model here. About 17 per cent of tribals in the State have received the deeds so far,” the Minister said here on Wednesday.
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Mr. Rai said the department would reconsider applications that had been rejected earlier for granting title deeds.
Fresh applications from tribal families would be received, the Minister said, adding that the Department of Social Welfare would take up welfare programmes for the title deed holders.
Mr. Rai said a decision had been taken to regularise forest land that had been encroached upon up to three acres.
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Only minor encroachments of the forest land in possession since 1978 would be considered for regularisation and those encroached upon over three acres would be recovered.
Man-animal conflict
On the issue of man-animal conflict, Mr. Rai said the work on installing unused railway tracks along the forest boundaries for preventing elephants from straying into human habitations was in progress.
“Once the work is done, the problem will be mitigated,” he said.