The Congress party is finalising a plan to launch a movement on the lines of Jharkhand’s Patthalgarhi in Madhya Pradesh. The Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government has failed to provide the tribals with the leases for their denotified land.
Former Delhi MP and coordinator of Gram Sarvodaya Abhiyan Sandeep Dikshit and assistant coordinator Anil Garg are planning the movement. The blueprint is being made on the basis of information gathered through replies in the state assembly.
According to the data gathered through these replies, the state government had to distribute leases of 27,13,980 acre denotified forest land among tribal population. However, the government has not distributed it in its five-year term. At the same time, it makes a claim of more than 41,000 community forest rights leases in the state.
Through replies in the state assembly, it was also known that the denotified forest land, for which leases have not been distributed include 32,987 acres in Sehore, which is the hometown of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Among the lists of districts which have the denotified forest land, Sidhi-Singrauli is on the top with a staggering 9,40,247 acres. Among other 40 districts, Gwalior has 1,27,787 acres and Balaghat has 74,287 acres.
It is interesting to note that the lands in question are still in possession of tribals and forest department has no records of these denotified lands.
The state government, on the other hand, has made claims of 41,021 community forest rights leases, over 12,000 of these, however, the courts refused to provide recognition. Balaghat tops the list of districts with rejected leases.
Patthalgarhi in Jharkhand has been making headlines ever since tribal villagers in remote parts of the state declared autonomous village republics with Patthalgarhi stone inscriptions issued by the Gram Sabhas. They have forbidden the entry of government officials or security forces into their villages. Patthalgarhi is an ancient and common practice among the Munda tribe of Jharkhand, in which a large stone, much like a tombstone, with the inscription of the family tree of the dead person, is placed on the graves.