BHOPAL, April 29: With the Assembly elections round the corner, the ruling Congress party has once again started dangling carrots before the tribals who constitute a substantial part of the population in Madhya Pradesh.Replying to the debate on the budgetary demands of his department, Forest Minister Shiv Netam today promised regularisation of the encroachments made by the tribals on forest land prior to 1980.On the face of it, it would sound a radical idea but the problem is that both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress think of it only when the elections are approaching.
There are lakhs and lakhs of SC/ST families who have been living and farming on forest land for decades. They have to suffer constant harassment by police and forest officials and dole out regular ``protection'' money to them. These police and forest officials have, in turn, protection of local influential politicians. The vicious cycle thus continues and no politician in power really wants to regularise theencroachments.
The BJP had, in its manifesto for the 1990 Assembly elections, categorically promised that the SC/ST families who had occupied the forest land before 1980 would be given pattas (ownership rights), with the permission of the Central Government, within a fixed time frame.
The BJP ruled the state for 33 months but did not take any concrete step to fulfill its election promise to the hapless SC/ST families. Now, at the fag-end of the five-year term of the Congress Government, Digvijay's forest minister has once again come out with the promise of regularising the pre-1980 encroachments on forest land.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
