Ensuring Land Rights for Tribal Communities

2025-07-24 Information

Replying to the un-starred questions of Shri Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka , the Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Shri Durgadas Uikey informed lok sabha today that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, being the Nodal Ministry for administering the legislative matters of “Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Recognition of Forest Rights Act 2006” (in short FRA), has been issuing directions and guidelines from time to time on various aspects to ensure proper implementation of the Act. As per FRA and Rules made thereunder, the State Governments are responsible for implementation of various provisions of the Act and is being implemented in 20 States and 1 UT.

FRA provides safeguards against forced eviction. Section 4(5) of FRA provides that Save as otherwise provided, no member of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribe or other traditional forest dwellers shall be evicted or removed from the forest land under his occupation till the recognition and verification procedure is complete. There is a provision of petition by aggrieved persons to SDLC and DLC [Section 6(2) and 6(4) of FRA]. Further, the State Level Monitoring Committee under the Chair of Chief Secretary is to meet at least once in three months to monitor the process of recognition, verification and vesting of forest rights, consider and address field level problems.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs monitors the Monthly Progress Reports submitted by the States/UTs. As reported by States/UTs, cumulatively till 31st May 2025, a total of 51,23,104 claims have been filed at Gram Sabha Level, comprising 49,11,495 individual and 2,11,609 community claims. Out of which a total of 25,11,375 (49.02%) titles were distributed, comprising 23,89,670 individual and 1,21,705 community titles. And 18,62,056 (36.34%) claims have been rejected, comprising 18,09,017 individual and 53,039 community claims. State wise details of claims filed at Gram Sabha Level (Individual and Community), Title distributed and claims rejected are at Annexure. The details of number of claims (individual and community) filed at Gram Sabha Level under FRA and the total number of claims rejected since 2020, month wise and State/UT-wise are available at this Ministry’s website- on FRA- MPR- https://tribal.nic.in/FRA.aspx.

Ministry of Tribal Affairs has taken following steps to ensure that eligible tribal families receive individual and community titles and that their habitat and customary rights remain protected and prevent wrongful evictions and expedite settlement process:

MoTA has been issuing directions and guidelines from time to time on various aspects to ensure proper implementation of the Act. Further review meetings are regularly being held from time to time with the State Tribal Welfare Department and concerned authorities. DC/DMs have been advised to dispose of all pending FRA Claims in time.

Grievances /representations received in the Ministry regarding violation of FRA are forwarded to the State / UTs concerned, to ensure that legitimate claimants are not denied their forest rights.

MoTA has been providing financial support to the districts under ‘DhartiAabaJanjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan’ (DA-JGUA)’ for setting up dedicated FRA cells at the State and district/subdivision levels, for a period of two years to facilitate the settlement process for pending claims (both community and individual), ensure timely convening of Sub-Divisional Level Committees (SDLC), District Level Committees (DLC), and other related bodies. MoTA has also issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the Setting up of FRA Cells. The ministry is urging states to prepare an FRA Atlas to map the potential forest areas which can be considered under FRA and undertake capacity building of all stakeholders. Further, Ministry has been providing financial support to the State Tribal Welfare Department for development and maintenance of the state-specific FRA portal (which includes dedicated server, cost of software, hardware, security audit, digital mapping of land records and other operational costs) under DA JGUA.

Annexure

S. No.

States

No. of Claims received

upto 31.05.2025

No. of Titles Distributed

upto 31.05.2025

Claims Rejected upto 31.05.2025

Individual

Community

Total

Individual

Community

Total

Individual

Community

Total

Andhra Pradesh

285,098

3,294

288,392

226,651

1,822

228,473

56940

1470

58410

Assam

148,965

6,046

155,011

57,325

1,477

58,802

NA/NR

Bihar

4,696

191

4496

Chhattisgarh

890,220

57,259

947,479

481,432

52,636

534,068

403129

3658

406787

Goa

9,757

379

10,136

856

871

438

447

Gujarat

183,055

7,187

190,242

98,732

4,792

103,524

2331

Himachal Pradesh

4,883

683

5,566

662

146

808

Jharkhand

107,032

3,724

110,756

59,866

2,104

61,970

26370

1737

28107

Karnataka

288,549

5,940

294,489

14,981

1,345

16,326

249060

4209

253269

Kerala

44,455

1,014

45,469

29,422

282

29,704

12539

296

12835

Madhya Pradesh

585,326

42,187

627,513

266,901

27,976

294,877

310216

12191

322407

Maharashtra

397,897

11,259

409,156

199,667

8,668

208,335

170487

2144

172631

Odisha

701,148

35,024

736,172

462,067

8,832

470,899

144104

532

144636

Rajasthan

113,162

5,213

118,375

49,215

2,551

51,766

63466

2455

65921

Tamil Nadu

33,119

1,548

34,667

15,442

1,066

16,508

12293

418

12711

Telangana

651,822

3,427

655,249

230,735

721

231,456

92744

1682

94426

Tripura

200,557

164

200,721

127,931

101

128,032

68785

68848

Uttar Pradesh

92,972

1,194

94,166

22,537

893

23,430

70435

301

70736

Uttarakhand

3,587

3,091

6,678

184

185

3403

3090

6493

West Bengal

131,962

10,119

142,081

44,444

686

45,130

87333

9254

96587

Jammu & Kashmir

33,233

12,857

46,090

429

5,591

6,020

32727

7197

39924

TOTAL

4,911,495

211,609

5,123,104

2,389,670

121,705

2,511,375

1809017

53039

1862056