The Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), which strives for implementation of Forest Rights Act in the State and establishment of Gram Sabha Sarkar in every village, on Thursday demanded revenue village status to 5,000 hamlets and un-surveyed villages and conversion of all forest villages into revenue villages before the panchayat elections in 2017.
Citing a statement made by the then Revenue Minister Surjya Narayan Patro in the Winter Session of the Assembly in 2010, the CSD asserted that 4,067 habitations in different districts of Odisha were devoid of status of revenue villages and a proposal for the same was put before the Government.
Patro had informed the House that since 2000, maps and records of around 459 revenue padas/hamlets had been prepared separately and had been assigned status of revenue village in different districts and the rest proposed Padas/hamlets were to be converted into revenue villages very soon. The CSD lamented that those 4,067 hamlets/Padas in last six years have not been converted to revenue villages.
As per the information shared by the Minister, those 4,067 hamlets fall in the districts such as Koraput (428), Malkangiri (256), Rayagarda (226), Mayurbhanja (142), Gajapati (208), Ganjam (250), Baleswar (300), Puri(291), Kendrapada (162), Jagatsinghpur(158), Cuttack (234), Jajpur (186), Bhadrak (234), Jharsuguda (124) and Bargarh (142) etc.
The CSD said that the problem was identified during facilitation of FRA implementation in different districts. In all the scheduled 5 districts, recognition of Gram Sabha should have been assigned to the hamlet revenue villages and Forest Rights Committee (FRC) should have been separately formed. The Odisha Government neglected this, it said.
Referring to the Census 2001, the CSD said the Odihsa Government itself identified 587 forest and un-surveyed villages, including 22 forest villages, under direct administration of the Forest Department. Besides, there are hundreds of such other unidentified villages falling in reserve forest. It said that the Government’s negligence towards the matter resulted in loss of identity of thousands of villages and consequently their residents. This has also resulted in the villages being deprived of the benefits of people-centric Palli Sabha, which is only held in revenue villages.
The CSD also reiterated its demands to have FRA Gram Sabha and Panchayat in every village for all purposes replacing the existing Panchayati Raj system in the State.