Pilot study on Road Map for mission of implementing Forest Rights Act, 2006 in Tamil Nadu: Approaches, Activities and Architectures at Erode district

There has been a strong focus on ensuring the forest land rights among tribes in India due to the Government of India’s flagship legislation called Forest Rights Act, 2006. In the last two decades, the country witnessed an increasing number of claims on forest land rights from tribes.

Inner Content: The main objective of the present study is to identify the barriers in successful implementation of issuing land titles on the three major categories of Individual Forest Rights (IFR), Community Forest Rights (CFR), Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR) for tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. The Pilot study examines the land issues, developmental aspects through the land rights, livelihood needs from forests and the institutional challenges in implementing FRA, 2006 at the region of Sathyamangalam hill ranges at Erode, Senbagathope Forest villages at Virudhunagar district and Sirumalai forest villages at Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu. Focus Group Discussions, Key Informant Interviews and Interviews with concern department officials have been made for the study purpose. The study recognizes enablers such as a favourable policy environment, capacity enhancement, collaboration with other stakeholders, and barriers like low awareness, inadequate capacities, and lack of institutional convergence mechanisms to promote the FRA, 2006 among the tribes and forest dwellers. The study also emphasises the need for creating a formal grievance redressal mechanism and undertaking measures to build the capacity of tribal communities and other forest dwellers. Improving grievance redressal mechanisms, and creating more awareness and information dissemination to tribal communities and other forest dwellers of above-mentioned districts.

Dr.S.Ilavarasi

Research Associate of Centre for Social Justice and Equity of Madras School of Social Work has completed her master’s and M.Phil. degrees in women’s studies. She did her doctoral research on ‘Women and Water: Problems and Possibilities of Water Governance – AMicrostudy in Tamil Nadu’ and awarded her Ph.D. in 2019. She has two years of experience as a Research Associate at the State Institute of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (SIRD & PR) of Government of Tamil Nadu in the period of 2018–2020, in which she has engaged with action research projects primarily focusing on gender and Sustainable Development Goals. She has been engaging in gender sensitization training programmes, menstrual hygiene management trainings, and sexual harassment against women. She had teaching experience as guest lecturer in women’s studies at Bharathidasan University and University of Madras for two years. She has published research papers and journals on gender and water governance. She has also produced documentaries on the themes of marginalised communities includes dalits, tribes, and women. She has participated and organised various national and international conferences.