Bengaluru: Karnataka has been slow in approving the application for the rights of forest land submitted by tribes and other locals.
Note that submitted to the center shows that the state has one of the worst levels of pendency in this country.
As of December 30, 2020, Karnataka has received more than 2.7 lakh applications from scheduled tribes (STS) and other forest residents who want to secure land ownership worked or held by their families for decades.
Of these, only 14,667 requests, related to 20,813 hectares, have been approved.
Odisha and Chhattisgarh lead in giving land forest land rights.
Odisha has cleaned up 4.4 lakh applications for the total area of 6.5 lakh hectares and Chhattisgarh has approved more than 4 lakh applications for 8.4 lakh hectares.
Officials in the Karnataka Forest Department and the Directorate of St Directorate said many applicants struggled to prove the anteceden which included three generations of their families or 75 years of land ownership before 2008, and this was the biggest obstacle in approving claims.
The rule of granting forest land rights is framed in 2008.
Compared to the ST community, other forest residents waited longer to find out the results of their application.
The first is automatically registered as the owner and has a direct right to land.
Some officials said that the Court of the Supreme Court in June 2019 had also caused high sceasers.
The court has asked the Karnataka government to review almost 1.9 lakh rejected applications.
“We have discarded 93,000 applications from other forest residents and provided a allotment letter to 15,322 of 46,000 public prosecutors,” said the Director of the Welfare of PS Kanhraju.
Many applicants are reported to try to maintain the land that symbolizes and avoids eviction.
“High education is also associated with demand for forest areas that have been interrupted.
Such soil pieces must be cleaned from encroachment if the country rejects the application,” said a forest official.
An official at the Social Welfare Department said that the backlog would make it easier to drastically if the center of the norms related to the 95-year antecedensions.
Forest land rights: Karnataka Lags in approving claims
