Forest Rights Act implementation; Training held for Revenue, RDD & Range Officers at Doda

Doda: District Administration Doda in coordination with Forest department, today organised a training for officials of Rural development Department and Range officers to acquaint them with the procedure for implementation of Forest Rights Act.

The training program was organised on the directions of DDC Doda Dr Sagar D Doifode, and imparted by Divisional Forest Officer Doda, Navneet Singh.

The DFO apprised the participants about the salient features of the Act, including various guidelines, role, responsibility and composition of the various Committees.

The DFO informed that the first level basic component namely Forest Rights Committees (FRC) have been formulated in all 237 Panchayats of the district, which shall now act as the executive arm of the Gram sabha.

He further said that the claims of the gram sabha regarding various community forest rights will be compiled by the FRC, which shall be send to the Sub division level Committee to get ascertained and when ascertained at the second level will be sent to the District level Committee for final approval.

The DFO said that the Act recognises the rights of forest dwellers (ST/OTFD) on ancestral lands and their habitat, which were not adequately recognised, adding to this he said that this act gives right to use of land rather right to land.

Among others present in the program were DFO Bhaderwah Chander Shekhar; SDM, Assar Rishi Sharma; SDM, Gandoh Dr Pritam Lal Thapa; DSWO Doda, Zubair Ahmed Lone; all Tehsildars, BDOs, besides Range Officers and TSW Officers.