Assam-Meghalaya Border Meeting Calls for Urgent Formation of Forest Rights Committees

A CORRESPONDENT

AZARA: A public meeting organised by the Assam Peace Forum was held at an auditorium in Ukiam along the Assam-Meghalaya border in South Kamrup on Saturday, with discussions focusing on the border issue and the formation of Forest Rights Committees (FRCs) in forest villages along the border. The meeting, chaired by Assam Peace Forum functionary Rajani Kanta Boro, stressed the need for forest-dwelling tribal communities to form FRCs and apply for land rights in accordance with the law.

Addressing the gathering, Boko-Chaygaon Co-District Commissioner Ramen Deuri said that tribal communities had been deprived of land rights and subjected to various forms of harassment during British rule. He observed that successive governments after Independence had failed to take adequate measures to address the land rights concerns of tribal people.

He said that the Central government had enacted the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act in 2006 to recognise the rights of eligible tribal communities and other traditional forest dwellers over forest land.

Deuri urged villages in the Ukiam area where FRCs had not yet been constituted to form the committees at the earliest and submit applications to the government for recognition of their land rights in accordance with the prescribed procedure.

Forest officer of the Bamunigaon Forest Range Office, Debabrata Sarma, alleged that some people supporting Meghalaya were influencing villagers against the formation of FRCs, resulting in several border villages failing to constitute the committees. He urged villagers not to be misled and to complete the process at the earliest.

Sarma warned that if the FRC formation process was not completed by December, the Forest Department would take steps to declare the villages illegal and initiate eviction proceedings.

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