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BHUBANESWAR: Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday sought a special package from the centre to provide irrigation facilities and
improve productivity of lands belonging to tribals by dovetailing various programmes such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) etc.
Addressing the conference of chief ministers, state ministers in charge of tribal/social welfare departments on "Implementation Status of Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) ACT 2006" inaugurated by Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh at New Delhi, Mr Patnaik said a host of initiatives taken by the state government to improve the lifestyle of the tribals needs to be backed up by the central assistance.
Scheduled Tribes [ST] constitute almost a quarter of the total population and Orissa has the unique distinction of having 62 different types of Scheduled Tribes including 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PTGs), Mr Patnaik informed the conference.
Listing out the initiatives taken by his government, Mr Patnaik said, the state had set up 1004 ST girl's hostels, provided scholarship for ST boys and girls, established 19 educational complexes in micro-project areas for promotion of girl's education among the PTGs, one B.Ed Training College in Kandhamal, and 11 Ekalavya Model Residential Schools etc.
“The State Government is also committed to establish another 5000 ST Girl's Hostels over a period of five years to provide residential facilities for five lakh ST Girls”, Mr Patnaik stated.
Chief Minister further mentioned that after the promulgation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights Act), 2006, the state government had taken pro-active measures to settle the land rights (both individual and community) in favour of the tribals and other forest dwellers which they had beenoccupying/enjoying for ages without any legal record of rights.
Substantial progress has been made on implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and about 2.64 lakh cases have already been verified out of more than 3 lakh cases filed by the Tribals with the Forest Rights Committees (FRCs) as on 31st October 2009, according to Mr Patnaik. He further informed that the Gram Sabhas have approved about two lakh cases and out of which the Sub Divisional Level Committees have already approved 72,000 cases.
The District Level Committees have approved about 68,000 cases out of which Certificates of Title have been distributed to more than 55,000
cases. About 4,000 Certificates of title have been distributed among the PTGs out of about 16,000 PTG families in the State.
Admitting that it might not be enough to only confer legal rights to the tribals over the land, Mr Patnaik suggested that steps should be initiated to provide irrigation facilities and improve productivity of these lands by dovetailing various programmes such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) etc.
Since his government has constituted a Watershed Mission to improve the productivity of rain fed lands, the centre should generously support this programme so that it can be extended to development of the lands being settled with the Tribals.
Earlier Mr Patnaik met Chairman of the 13th Finance Commission Vijay L Kelkar and lodged protest against the Centre's “denial of benefits” to the state under the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (APDRP).
Demanding a special package from the 13th Finance Commission, Mr Patnaik said though Orissa pioneered a reform programme and privatised the power distribution system in the state; it was denied the benefit of the APDRP.
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