Hyderabad: Two civil society organisations have demanded an immediate halt to the relocation of Adivasi communities from villages falling within the Amrabad Tiger Reserve area in Telangana, alleging that the displacement drive is being carried out through coercion, manipulation of official records and outright falsehoods.
A six-member fact-finding team from the Human Rights Forum (HRF) and the Dalit Bahujan Front (DBF) visited the affected villages on Sunday, May 3, and found that Revenue, Forest and police officials were intimidating tribal residents opposed to the move, stalling welfare schemes in their villages, and in at least one instance, pushing through a purported gram sabha resolution without the legally required quorum.
The Revenue and Forest departments have been projecting the relocation as a voluntary exercise with wide tribal support. The fact-finding team flatly rejected this claim. At a recent rally organised to demonstrate willingness to relocate, the team found that the only tribal participant was the husband of the Sarlapalli Sarpanch, while all other attendees were non-tribals.
The villages targeted in the first phase of relocation include those under Sarlapalli Gram Panchayat –Kudichintalabayalu and Tatigundala Penta – as well as Vatavarlapalli Panchayat and Kollampenta. Residents are being asked to move to Bacharam, a plains settlement roughly 100 kilometre away.
The affected communities belong to the Chenchu tribe, classified by the central government as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG). “Instead of providing special protection to a community facing the threat of extinction, the authorities are resorting to such policies,” the report stated.
The fact-finding team noted that there had been no recorded conflict between humans and tigers in the region over the past 50 years, and that the Chenchus possessed traditional knowledge of tiger movement and behaviour that had long served as an informal buffer between the two.
Tribal residents told the team they considered tigers sacred – as manifestations of the Mother Goddess – and had never harmed them. They opposed the relocation on the grounds that it would strip them of rights guaranteed under the Fifth Schedule, the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) (PESA) Act, the Forest Rights Act and the Land Transfer Regulation Act, and leave them without land, livelihoods or legal recourse in an unfamiliar region.
The team also flagged the practice of getting non-tribal residents who had agreed to relocate to sign agreements written entirely in English, while compensation assurances of Rs 15 lakh, land allotments and housing were conveyed only verbally. “Although termed voluntary relocation, this amounts to displacement by inducement and coercion,” the report said.
Welfare works, including the Indiramma Housing scheme, road construction and the building of women’s community halls, have been suspended in the targeted villages under the pretext that they are being vacated, the team alleged.
The two organisations have called on the state government to immediately stop the displacement drive, recognise only gram sabha resolutions passed with proper quorum, implement PESA and the Forest Rights Acts in letter and spirit; end harassment of those resisting relocation and provide legally binding guarantees to any tribal family that does agree to move.
This post was last modified on May 3, 2026 6:07 pm