Hyderabad: Congress party on Saturday decided to intensify the agitation seeking rights for Girijans on forest lands.
Congress MP and former TPCC President Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the TRS government was not implementing the Forest Rights Act, 2006 enacted by the then Congress-led UPA government at the Centre to grant ownership rights to Girijans on forest lands.
He alleged that the TRS is using the term ‘Podu’ lands to deprive Girijans of their rights on forest land and that chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is not honouring a law passed by the Parliament.
He was addressing a round-table meeting, chaired by former MLC B Ramulu Naik, on the issue, held at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday.
He said that the previous Congress government enacted the Forest Rights Act in 2006 to grant rights on forest land to the Girijans. It was effectively implemented through various committees. When the Congress party was in power from 2004-2014, there were 1968 Forest Rights Committees, Nine District Level Committees, 33 Sub-Divisional Committees and one state-level monitoring committee.
He informed that as many as 2,15,742 individual applications were received for rights on 8,18,090 acres of forest land. Till 2014, a total of 99,486 applications were resolved for 3,29,571 Acres.
“In 2014, a total of 1,16,256 applications for 4,88,518 acres were pending. However, the present official data shows that the individual claims resolved up to 30 June 2022 were 97,536 for 3,10,916 acres. This means that the TRS government, in the last eight years, did not give a single acre of forest land to the Girijans. Instead, it took away 18,655 Acres of forest land from 1,950 Girijans,” he said.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the TRS government issued GO Ms No 140 dated August 11 to constitute District Coordination Committees headed by Incharge District Minister for lands under Podu cultivation. “There is no place in the law for the formation of such a committee. Therefore, the Congress party approached the High Court and got a stay on the GO to stop its implementation,” he said.
The Congress MP said that instead of calling ‘Podu’ lands, they should be referred to as forest lands and their rights should be awarded to eligible Girijans.
“By using twisted terminology, KCR is facilitating illegal encroachment on forest lands by TRS leaders while snatching away the lands given by the previous Congress government to poor eligible Girijans. Innocent Girijans were implicated in false cases when they claimed their rights on forest land as per the law,” he claimed.
Stating that he could also speak the lambada language, Uttam Kumar Reddy gave references to his interaction with the tribals in his constituency about their problems. He added that the KCR government failed to provide funds and other amenities in the tribal villages and claimed that the new Gram Panchayats do not even have buildings and are operating under trees.
He demanded that the construction of a Banjara Bhavan in the Banjara Hills of Hyderabad be welcomed however, it does not solve the problems being faced by the tribals in the villages and hamlets.
Uttam Kumar Reddy advised the party leaders to organise a conference on Girijan issues in the Munugode constituency.
