Third Regional FRA Review Conference Held in Srinagar

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs convened the Third Regional Review Conference on the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. Senior officials from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir went over the progress made, the difficulties that remain and the actions that must be taken first. The meeting closed the regional review series, which had begun at Bengaluru on 10 September 2026 and continued at Kolkata on 9 October 2026.

The national picture

In the keynote address, Shri Anant Prakash Pandey, Joint Secretary in the Ministry, gave the position as of 31 August 2026. About 54 lakh claims had been received across the country. Of these, 43.56 lakh claims, or 80.64 per cent, had been disposed of, 25.42 lakh titles had been distributed over nearly 238 lakh acres, 10.45 lakh claims were still pending and 18.13 lakh had been rejected. He stressed that every rejection must carry a reasoned order communicated to the claimant, with the statutory right of appeal preserved, and asked States to draw up district-wise plans to clear pending claims and to look again at rejected cases.

Community rights and habitat rights

On Community Forest Resource Rights, the Ministry asked for sustainable management and for Community Forest Resource management plans to be read together with the working plans of forest departments, which a joint communication of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change now enables. Entering recognised rights in revenue records can open the door to farm income support and to agriculture, fisheries and livelihood schemes. States were urged to speed up habitat rights for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, since such rights have so far been recognised for only 11 of the country’s 75 PVTGs.

What the host UT reported

Jammu and Kashmir said that of 48,287 claims received, District Level Committees had approved 6,191 and 6,178 titles had been distributed, covering about 3,960 hectares, mostly under community rights. The Union Territory has a State Level Monitoring Committee under the Chief Secretary and District Level Committees in all 20 of its districts, and a circular directs that eligible Scheduled Tribe and other traditional forest dweller families are not to be evicted before due process is complete. Shri Javed Ahmed Rana, the UT Minister for Tribal Affairs, Jal Shakti and Forest, Ecology and Environment, said the Act safeguards the dignity, the livelihood and the future of forest-dependent communities and called for transparent and timely disposal of claims with greater Gram Sabha participation.

Money and the way forward

Smt. Samidha Singh, Director (FRA), set out the financial support available: Rs 25 lakh a State under the Support to Tribal Research Institutes scheme for mapping, Rs 15 lakh for each Community Forest Resource management plan under DA-JGUA, and Rs 1 lakh for technical support. The Ministry asked the States and the UT to prepare district-wise action plans naming the stage of delay, its cause and the authority responsible for every pending claim, to submit reconciled monthly progress reports, to finish digitisation and the entry of recognised rights in revenue and forest records, to build habitat rights roadmaps for each PVTG and to review progress every quarter through monitoring committees chaired by Chief Secretaries.