PM Modi paying ‘lip service’ to Adivasis’ cause, govt denying them justice: Congress

Congress wide caput in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said contiguous is the 150th commencement day of ‘Dharti Aaba Bhagwan Birsa Munda’, one of the top sons of India and a fierce advocator of self-governance and societal justice.

“The non-biological PM is successful Jamui, Bihar paying articulator work to the origin of the Adivasis connected this occasion, adjacent arsenic his Government goes afloat throttle connected attempts to contradict Adivasis justice,” Ramesh alleged successful a statement.

“The Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA) – named aft Bhagwan Birsa Munda, but a afloat mockery of the Forest Rights Act- illustrates this hypocrisy,” helium said.

Ramesh said the Forest Rights Act ( FRA 2006) passed by the Manmohan Singh’s authorities was a revolutionary instrumentality and it transferred powerfulness and authorization implicit forests from the wood section to the gram sabha.

In different departure from precedent, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs was empowered arsenic the nodal authorization to instrumentality the law, helium pointed out.

The FRA empowered the Adivasi assemblage and gram sabhas to govern and negociate forests arsenic a large betterment to guarantee antiauthoritarian governance of forests, Ramesh said.

“After the revolution, however, came Narendra Modi’s counter-revolution. DAJGUA fundamentally undoes this historical instrumentality and the antiauthoritarian betterment successful wood governance,” helium claimed.

Ramesh said it dilutes the authorization of Ministry of Tribal Affairs by giving authorization to the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change successful the implementation of FRA.

Rather than empower the FRA’s statutory bodies – namely the gram sabha, the sub-divisional committee, the territory level committee, and the authorities level monitoring committee – DAJGUA has created a immense parallel organization mechanics of FRA cells astatine the territory and sub-divisional levels and arming them with ample funds and contractual staff, helium pointed out.

They are straight nether the centralised bureaucratic power of Ministry of Tribal Affairs and State Tribal Welfare Departments, and deficiency accountability to the FRA’s statutory bodies.

DAJGUA empanels and engages method agencies/domain experts /corporate NGOs for the FRA implementation and CFR absorption activities of the gram sabhas by the State Tribal Welfare Departments, helium said.

Ramesh argued that these FRA cells are to instrumentality implicit what the FRA statutory bodies are required to bash by law, leaving these statutory bodies to beryllium appendages to these FRA Cells, nominal bodies reduced to carrying retired the biddings of these FRA cells, helium said.

“This has been done without attraction to the economical and societal sensitivities involved, adjacent arsenic a monolithic budget has been allocated for this (Rs. 1 lakh for the method agencies for each CFR). For example, successful Madhya Pradesh, the BJP authorities engaged the Maharashtra Knowledge Company Limited (MKCL) to make the VanMiTRA app, which made the transparent process of submitting FRA claims into an obscure, online process that method operators took complaint of,” helium said.

Three lakh claims were rejected arsenic a result, helium added.

Adivasi groups are justifiably disquieted astir the aforesaid happening astatine a ample standard owed to the engagement of specified tech agencies, Ramesh said.

The wood section has present been allowed to beryllium a portion of the gram sabha’s ain committee for absorption of assemblage wood resources, a nonstop usurpation of the FRA, Ramesh said.

“The FRA was enacted for empowering Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities to govern and negociate their resources. DAJGUA, successful emblematic Manuvadi fashion, lone sees these communities arsenic forest-dwelling vanvasis who are labhaartis, alternatively than governmental and economical actors successful their ain right,” helium alleged.

As captured successful the Adivasi Sankalp unveiled by Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra successful Nandurbar, Maharashtra connected the 12th of March, 2024, the Congress is committed to the honorable and just implementation of the FRA, Ramesh asserted.

“It is portion of our guarantees to the radical successful some Jharkhand and Maharashtra and volition proceed to beryllium a precedence for upcoming assembly and parliamentary elections,” helium stressed.

Tagging his statement, Ramesh said connected X, “As the non-biological PM pays articulator work to the Adivasi origin by celebrating the 150th commencement day of Dharti Aaba Bhagwan Birsa Munda contiguous successful Jamui, we should not beryllium fooled: his Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA) is thing but an implicit mockery of the revolutionary Forest Rights Act (2006) and Adivasi self-governance.”