Avoid wrong approach to noble cause: Saikot MLA
Source: Chronicle News Service
Kpi, May 17 2022:
While appreciating forest minister Th Biswajit for his initiatives of meeting and interacting with chiefs and villagers of several hill villages soliciting their wilful participation in government's efforts to promote sustainable management of the state's ecology, Saikot MLA Paolienlal Haokip has drawn attention of the minister towards resolving some of the reserved forest issues facing the state.
In a representation to the minister, Paolienlal pointed out that some officials of forest department are either issuing show-cause notices to villagers or taking up plantation drives without involving local populace thereby creating avoidable tension in Saikot AC.
In the representation, the Saikot MLA further said that certain procedures under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 are to be followed while demarcating any land as a reserved forest.
It is only after completion of all such procedures that government can issue notification declaring a land as reserved forest.
Deeply concerned over issuance of show-cause notices to villagers, Paolienlal said that the government should stop issuing show cause or eviction notices.
He also said that the government must control public sentiment on communal lines over the issue of afforestation programme of Thangjing Hill.
He further said that traditional pilgrimage rights of one religious community need not conflict with land rights of another.
The recent viral videos of small gun-wielding volunteers claiming to be Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha volunteers forcing their way through land-owning locals to forcibly plant trees in Thangjing hill appears to be a wrong approach to afforestation programme.
He continued that as far as villages within reserved for ests are concerned, the Forests Rights Act, 2006 known otherwise as the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 need to be implemented in the state's Reserved Forests before issuing any orders for eviction.
He then appealed to people of Manipur to avoid the wrong approach to a noble cause.