The district administration will review the applications of tribals whose applications under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, has been rejected.
The decision to give the tribals another chance to substantiate their claims to reap the benefits under the FRA is consequent to a Supreme Court directive to complete the exercise before July 24, 2019, and submit a report to it before the next hearing.
The NGOs had contended that local authorities had denied the tribals a chance to present their case at the time of submission and had instead summarily rejected their applications in bulk.
Meanwhile, a meeting was convened on Thursday to discuss the action plan and chalk out a time-bound programme to complete the review process. Deputy Commissioner Abhiram G. Sankar instructed officials to complete the review process by June 10. In all, 6,459 tribals whose applications under FRA were rejected by the authorities in Mysuru, will get another chance to substantiate their claims to avail the benefits under the Act.
Prabha Urs, Tribal Officer, said an adalat will be held at taluk and gram panchayat levels to receive and review the applications; and every applicant will be given a chance to prove and substantiate their claim. “We will prepare a time-table and decide on the dates of when the adalats will be held and complete the exercise by June 10,” she added.
In Mysuru, 7,275 tribals had applied to secure the benefits under the FRA of which 755 were approved and 6,459 applications were rejected. In Kodagu 3,623 applications were filed of which 1,727 were granted rights and 1,894 were rejected. From Chamarajanagar, there were 2,512 applicants. Of these 2,063 claims were rejected and 446 were approved.
The highest number of applications rejected was in Uttara Kannada district. Here, there were 89,167 applicants. Of these, 2,846 were approved, 69,742 were rejected and 16,579 are pending.
From Shivamogga, there were 85,518 claimants of which 2,506 claims were approved, 50,648 were rejected and 32,364 are pending for final disposal.
Similarly in Chikkamagaluru there were 24,659 applicants of which 1,911 were approved while 22,748 were rejected.
