The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers  (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 mandates for the constitution of monitoring Committees Section 6 (7) of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 provides that the State Government shall constitute a State Level Monitoring Committee (SLMC) to monitor the process of recognition and vesting of forest rights and to submit to the nodal agency such return and reports as may be called for by that agency.

       As per Rule 9 of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Rules, 2007 the State Level Monitoring Committee comprises of –

(i)                 Chief Secretary                                                                       Chairperson

(ii)               Secretary, Revenue Department                                             member

(iii)             Secretary, tribal of Social Welfare Department                      member

(iv)             Secretary, Forest Department                                                 member

(v)               Secretary, Panchayati Raj                                                       member

(vi)             Principal Chief Conservator of Forests                                   member

(vii)           Three Scheduled Tribes member of the Tribes Advisory Council (TAC), to be nominated by the Chairperson of the TAC and where there is no TAC, three Scheduled Tribes members to be nominated by the State Government;

(viii)         Commissioner, Tribal Welfare or equivalent who shall be the Member Secretary.

As per Rule 10 of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Rules, 2007, functions of the SLMC are as under:

·         devise criteria and indicators for monitoring the process of recognition and vesting of forest rights;

·          monitor the process of recognition, verification and vesting of forest rights in the State;

·         meet at least once in three months to monitor the process of recognition, verification and vesting of forest rights, consider and address the field level problems, and furnish a quarterly report in the prescribed format, to the Central Government on their assessment regarding the status of claims, the compliance with the steps required under the Act, details of claims approved, reasons for rejection, if any and the status of pending claims.

            As per the information available with the Ministry, all the States have constituted SLMC except Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Telangana.

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 does not mandate for the constitution of monitoring committees at the block and district level.

This information was given today by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Shri Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava in reply to written question in Lok Sabha.

SS: constitution 08-08-2014(lok)