The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, popularly known as the Forests Rights Act (FRA), was enacted in 2007 through the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) to correct the ‘historic injustice done to forest-dwelling communities’.
These communities were cultivating/occupying forest land and using forest produce since ages but had no tenurial security, as their rights of occupation and usage were not recorded during the settlement process.
The Act recognises and vests individual forest-dwellers with forest rights to live in and cultivate forest land that was occupied before 13 Dec 2005 and grants community forest rights ....
