Bista for forest dwellers' rights

MP Raju Bista requested the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, to investigate and take steps towards ensuring justice for forest dwellers of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts by recognizing their rights to their ancestral land and providing Parja-Patta

SNS, SILIGURI, 24 SEPTEMBER 2020: Darjeeling MP Raju Bista today said he has requested the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which is the implementing authority for the Forest Rights Act (FRA), to investigate and take steps towards ensuring justice for forest dwellers of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts by recognizing their rights to their ancestral land and providing Parja-Patta (land rights document).

"Why are forest dwellers from the districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong deprived of their constitutional rights?" Mr Bista said.

According to him, he also informed Parliament that such is the level of deprivation that no panchayat elections have been held in the region since 2000. "Because of which, for the past 20 years, people from the Hill regions of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts have been left to fend for themselves. In the absence of elected Panchayat, there is no elected people's body which can protect the rights of these people," he said.

"I informed the House about the discrimination meted out by the Government of West Bengal while implementing the Forest Rights Act 2006. As per the FRA 2006, all forest villages inhabited by people must be converted in to revenue village and land rights and ownerships are transferred to the forest dwellers. In 2013, the West Bengal Government issued a notification to convert forest land to revenue village across the state. A Gazette notification for conversion of Forest Villages into Revenue villages was issued for the neighbouring districts of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduars in 2014 itself. However, no steps have been taken by the TMC-led Government in West Bengal towards conferring the same rights to the forest dwellers of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts where around 2.6 lakh people live in Forest Areas," the MP said..