Poonch:Deputy Commissioner Poonch, Rahul Yadav Monday chaired a meeting for awareness & effective implementation of provisions of Forest Rights Act, preparation of master trainers for training of field functionaries here at DC Office Conference Hall Poonch.
The meeting ws attended by DFO Poonch, SDMRange officers, ACR, SDM’s, Tehsildar, BDO, DSWO, besides all concerned officers.During the meeting salient features of Act and rules including various guidelines have been discussed in details for better understanding of all so that objective of Act can be fulfiled.
The meeting was informed that FRA recognizes rights of forest dwellers (ST/OTFD) on ancestral lands and their habitat, which were not adequately recognized. It also includes responsibility and authority for sustainable use, conservation of biodiversity and maintenance of ecological balance.
DC has directed the rural department to immediately convene training of Panchayat secretaries to convene meeting of Gram Sabha to elect with quorum, a Forest rights committee (FRC) from amongst its members of not less than ten but not exceeding fifteen persons wherein at least two third members shall be the scheduled tribes & not less than one third shall be women. Further, FRC shall decide on a chairperson and a secretary. Panchayat secretaries shall keep proper record of all proceedings.
Deputy Commissioner has further directed the master trainers from Revenue, Forest & Rural department to immediately start training of front line staff in scheduled manner for awareness & effective implementation of provisions of Forest Rights Act. During the meeting, a decision was taken to convene training at Sub-division level through master trainers.It has also been discussed that during entertaining & verification of claims under FRA, status of land through demarcation and reconciliation of records of revenue & forest would definitely needed, therefore staff of forest department and revenue department shall put all efforts for demarcation of forest land and accordingly reconciliation of forest records with revenue records.
