Include forest right issues in manifestoes: CSD to political parties

BHUBANESWAR: Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD) Odisha, a group fighting for better implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), on Sunday urged all the political parties participating in the General Election 2014 to include issues related to forest rights and protection of scheduled fifth area in their manifestos.

The organisation appealed the political parties to promise for strengthening of the Gram Sabha. It has opined that there are many problems in the existing Panchaytiraj system in the State in which the community people hardly have any role in the decision making process and all the power has been centralised at the bureaucrats.

CSD suggested that the concept ‘Palli Sabha’ in a revenue village should be replaced with the concept ‘One Village-One Gram Sabha’ and ‘Hamlet-level Gram Sabha’ irrespective of revenue or un-surveyed village having a provision of more than 50 per cent quorum of the Gram Sabha as prescribed under FRA, 2006 and Panchayats Extension to the Scheduled Area (PESA) Act, 1996.

The organisation also urged the political parties to promise to save the ‘Scheduled Fifth Areas’, which is 46 per cent of the total geographical area of the State, mostly populated by the SCs and STs. Proper implementation of the PESA Act and the FRA should be the priority in the election manifestos of the political parties, it added.