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Forest Rights Act in Vidarbha: Land, Livelihoods, and Local Governance

Forest Rights Act in Vidarbha: Land, Livelihoods, and Local Governance
Forest Rights Act in Vidarbha: Land, Livelihoods, and Local Governance

The Forest Rights Act (2006), formally known as The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, was enacted to address the absence of legal recognition for the people living in and depending on India’s forests.


The law acknowledged that forest dwellers had been historically displaced, misclassified, or criminalised under colonial and post-independence forest governance models.

In regions like Vidarbha in eastern Maharashtra, this legislation altered long-standing hierarchies between local communities and the forest administration.


The Act identifies two main groups: Forest-Dwelling Scheduled Tribes (FDST) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD), with rights depending on whether they resided in forests before 13 December 2005 (for FDSTs) or for at least three generations (75 years) prior (for OTFDs). These groups can claim individual titles to land they have occupied and community rights over resources such as minor forest produce, water bodies, grazing areas, and traditional knowledge systems.


Each claim begins at the Gram Sabha level, where claims are submitted, verified, and forwarded to sub-divisional and district-level committees.



Gram Sabhas are also empowered to manage and conserve community forest resources (CFR), a provision that made community self-governance central to the law’s implementation.

In Maharashtra, the law has had substantial reach.


As of 2024, the state had recognised over 38.7 lakh acres (15.7 lakh hectares) of forest land under the FRA. Over 2 lakh families had received individual land titles, covering 5.68 lakh acres, while the remaining 33 lakh acres were recognised as CFRs.

Much of this activity has taken place in Vidarbha’s tribal-dominated districts of Gadchiroli, Gondia, Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Amravati, and Nagpur.


The village of Mendha-Lekha in Gadchiroli became the first in India to receive a CFR title in 2009. Since then, more than 1,500 villages across Vidarbha have received community forest resource rights.


These Gram Sabhas now have the legal authority to protect, manage, and earn income from their forests. They prepare management plans, negotiate tendu leaf auctions, and use revenues for village development.


Legal empowerment through FRA has also influenced governance in Fifth Schedule Areas of Vidarbha, where the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA, 1996) also applies. In these zones, FRA and PESA together strengthen Gram Sabha control over land and natural resource governance.


Villages like Mendha-Lekha describe themselves as Gram Sabha Sarkar, village governments.

Challenges remain.


Many OTFD claims were rejected due to difficulty in proving 75 years of residency. Some title deeds lack accurate maps, and others recorded smaller land areas than cultivated.


In 2019, a Supreme Court order threatened eviction for all rejected claimants, affecting thousands in Vidarbha, before it was stayed. Administrative delays, especially where sub-divisional or district committees met infrequently, also hindered implementation.


Livelihoods and Economic Shifts


In Vidarbha, the economic outcomes of the FRA have extended beyond subsistence farming. Households with recognised land titles now access agricultural schemes and make long-term investments in farming.


These include irrigation development and the use of certified seeds, which were previously avoided due to the risk of eviction or loss of crops by forest patrols.


Community rights over minor forest produce (MFP), especially tendu leaves and bamboo, have significantly raised village-level incomes.


Before the FRA, the forest department handled tendu sales and paid collectors nominally. After gaining CFRs, Gram Sabhas began to conduct their own auctions. In 2017, around 1,500 FRA-recognised villages in Vidarbha earned ₹33 crore through tendu leaf sales, often securing prices 2–3 times higher than previous rates.

Villages such as Mendha-Lekha and Panchgaon also began managing bamboo sales. In 2011, Mendha-Lekha earned ₹1.15 crore from bamboo. In 2015–16, the village of Padboriya (Padav) in Gadchiroli earned ₹2.71 crore through bamboo sales.


Panchgaon earned ₹1.46 crore between 2013–2017. This revenue was distributed among villagers and partly used for infrastructure projects such as wells, grain banks, and storage facilities.



In Dhamditola, a village in Gondia, Gram Sabha leaders decided on fire patrol schedules and invited competitive tendu buyers to improve prices. Community members, particularly women, were trained in sorting and bundling tendu, enabling value addition within the village itself.


These earnings reduced seasonal migration. In Dhamditola, after FRA-linked auctions improved earnings, fewer youth left for cities during the lean season. This trend led to more consistent school attendance, strengthened family ties, and built local capacity for forest management work.


Increased village income has supported value-added ventures. Several Gram Sabhas began processing mahua flowers into oil and syrup.

Some villages formed federations to jointly market their MFP, gaining bargaining strength and spreading best practices. The presence of secure land tenure also opened access to bank loans and rural development programmes. Joint title provisions also improved intra-household equity, giving women legal recognition as co-owners.


Though some benefits were unequally distributed, landless households may only benefit from community rights and not individual land. Most Gram Sabhas in Vidarbha instituted policies to ensure that earnings from forest produce were shared with all resident families, reducing inequality and conflict.



Conservation Through Community Control

Conservation Through Community Control in Gram Sabha's in the FRA Act
Conservation Through Community Control in Gram Sabha's in the FRA Act

The FRA was framed on the assumption that communities dependent on forests would conserve them if they had legal rights.


In Vidarbha, this has largely held true. CFR-recognised villages introduced community regulations, reforestation efforts, and fire prevention protocols. In several villages, including Dhamditola and those in Amravati district, Gram Sabhas began regenerating degraded areas by planting indigenous species such as bamboo, amla, and mahua.


In community-managed forests, wildlife sightings reportedly increased. Villagers attributed this to reduced illegal logging and better resource regulation.

For example, Gram Sabhas scheduled rotational harvesting of bamboo and limited firewood collection during regrowth periods. In some years, tendu leaf harvesting was paused to avoid depleting younger plants.


A study reported that bamboo productivity doubled, from 0.94 tonnes per hectare to 1.89 tonnes, in areas under community control. Fire prevention became a collective responsibility. Gram Sabhas arranged fire lines, summer patrols, and community alerts to minimise forest fires, especially before tendu harvesting.


This model has challenged earlier conservation policies that excluded people from protected areas. Many CFR villages in Vidarbha recorded better ecological conditions than adjacent areas under forest department management.


Unlike contractor-driven extraction, communities exercised restraint and took decisions based on forest condition and future needs.


The overlap of community rights with wildlife conservation, however, introduced tensions. Villages located inside or near protected areas like Tadoba-Andhari (Chandrapur) and Melghat Tiger Reserve (Amravati) faced pressure to relocate. As of 2024, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had identified 89,000 families across India, including hundreds in Vidarbha, for relocation from core tiger habitats.


FRA mandates that such relocations must be voluntary and preceded by settlement of claims. Still, reports indicated that some communities were pressured or misinformed. In some Gram Sabhas, including those in Tadoba’s buffer areas, villagers formally refused relocation and offered to manage conservation efforts instead.


A separate conflict arose over Zudpi Jungle lands, especially in Nagpur, Chandrapur, Gondia, and Wardha. These scrub forests, traditionally used for grazing and resource collection, were reclassified by the state as Reserved Forests, which excludes local access.


In Mangli (Chandrapur), villagers protested the move, arguing that their recognised FRA rights overlapped with the new classification. Some had already received title deeds, only to find the same land listed as reserved. Multiple protests were held across eastern Vidarbha in late 2024.

Environmental and land classification policies that ignore recognised rights have resulted in governance conflicts. While Maharashtra had been progressive in recognising CFRs, such reclassifications have weakened trust between communities and the state, especially where Gram Sabha consultation was missing.


Governance, Conflict, and Regional Comparisons


The Forest Rights Act in Vidarbha has restructured decision-making at the village level. Gram Sabhas have taken over roles previously held by forest rangers or external contractors. With this authority came responsibility, and the challenge of sustaining fair, transparent, and ecologically balanced use of resources.


Maharashtra’s administrative backing helped. District Collectors in several Vidarbha districts actively promoted claim processing and verified land records.


The tribal development department also coordinated with NGOs to offer training, help with mapping, and track pending claims. This was not consistent across the state, and in some places, district committees did not meet regularly. But overall, Vidarbha’s administrative engagement was stronger than many regions.


A key factor was community organisation. Gadchiroli’s Gram Sabha federations shared audit practices, planning templates, and negotiation strategies.

In comparison, states like Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan faced greater delays and weaker community mobilisation.


Odisha recognised large numbers of individual titles but lagged behind Maharashtra in CFR area coverage. By 2020, Maharashtra had recognised 2.74 million acres of CFRs, much of it in Vidarbha, second only to Chhattisgarh.


The contrast was also visible in how regions addressed Left-Wing Extremism. In districts like Gadchiroli, FRA implementation led to a decline in Maoist recruitment. Where communities received legal recognition, they were more likely to engage with government programmes and less likely to support insurgent activity.



In neighbouring Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, where FRA claims faced rejection or delay, conflicts continued longer.


Though positive outcomes are clear, local disputes did occur. In some villages, the inclusion of non-tribal claimants triggered debates over eligibility.

Intra-village inequality also surfaced in a few cases when earnings were distributed unequally. Some forest department officials were initially reluctant to accept community control and accused Gram Sabhas of overstepping or poor accounting. These issues were addressed through monitoring, federation oversight, and increasing community familiarity with rights procedures.


By 2024, around 5,000 CFR-recognised villages existed across Maharashtra, with Vidarbha accounting for the majority. Yet, this represents only a portion of the approximately 18,000 eligible villages.


it The potential to extend rights to the remaining communities still exists, but depends on political will, administrative continuity, and field-level support.



References




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