Early Times Report
RAJOURI, Sept 16: District Level Forest Rights Committee which met under the chairmanship of the District Development Commissioner Rajouri, Rajesh K Shavan here today cleared 408 claims after conducting thorough scrutiny of the claims received from sub-divisional Committee.
The BDC Chairperson Qila Darhal, Khalid Firdoz, besides Divisional Forest Officer Rajouri, Dr Arshdeep Singh; DFO Nowshera, Suresh Manda; ADC Rajouri, Sachin Dev Singh; ADC Nowshera, Sukhdev Singh Sambayal; ADC Sunderbani, Vinod Kumar Behnal; ADC Koteranka, Surinder Mohan Sharma; ACR, Tahir Mustafa Malik; ACD, Sushil Khajuria; CPO, Mohammad Khurshid; AC Defence, Saleem Qureshi; ACP, Abdul Rashid besides other members of the District Level Committee attended the meeting. Pertinently, the Forest Rights Act of 2006 provides rights to forest dwellers. Under the Act, members of the Scheduled Tribes dwelling in the forests along with other traditional residents will have the right over forest land for habitation or self-cultivation or livelihood. Earlier, the Act was not applicable or implemented in Jammu and Kashmir and was made applicable after 31st October 2019, recognizing the rights of forest-dweller communities for the first time. It was informed in the meeting that the Sub Divisional Level Committees have forwarded claims to the District Level Committee headed by Deputy Commissioners for final approval.
After a threadbare discussion and scrutiny of all the claims put up in the meeting, the committee approved 408 claims which included 8 individual and 400 community right claims. |
