Ensuring Land Rights for Tribal Communities

Ministry of Tribal Affairs Ensuring Land Rights for Tribal Communities Posted On: 24 JUL 2025 5:29PM by PIB Delhi Replying to the un-starred questions of Shri Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka , the Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Shri Durgadas Uikey informed lok sabha today that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, being the Nodal Ministry for administering the legislative matters of “Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Recognition of Forest Rights Act 2006” (in short FRA), has been issuing directions and guidelines from time to time on various aspects to ensure proper implementation of the Act. As per FRA and Rules made thereunder, the State Governments are responsible for implementation of various provisions of the Act and is being implemented in 20 States and 1 UT. FRA provides safeguards against forced eviction. Section 4(5) of FRA provides that Save as otherwise provided, no member of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribe or other traditional forest dwellers shall be evicted or removed from the forest land under his occupation till the recognition and verification procedure is complete. There is a provision of petition by aggrieved persons to SDLC and DLC [Section 6(2) and 6(4) of FRA]. Further, the State Level Monitoring Committee under the Chair of Chief Secretary is to meet at least once in three months to monitor the process of recognition, verification and vesting of forest rights, consider and address field level problems. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs monitors the Monthly Progress Reports submitted by the States/UTs. As reported by States/UTs, cumulatively till 31st May 2025, a total of 51,23,104 claims have been filed at Gram Sabha Level, comprising 49,11,495 individual and 2,11,609 community claims. Out of which a total of 25,11,375 (49.02%) titles were distributed, comprising 23,89,670 individual and 1,21,705 community titles. And 18,62,056 (36.34%) claims have been rejected, comprising 18,09,017 individual and 53,039 community claims. State wise details of claims filed at Gram Sabha Level (Individual and Community), Title distributed and claims rejected are at Annexure. The details of number of claims (individual and community) filed at Gram Sabha Level under FRA and the total number of claims rejected since 2020, month wise and State/UT-wise are available at this Ministry’s website- on FRA- MPR- https://tribal.nic.in/FRA.aspx. Ministry of Tribal Affairs has taken following steps to ensure that eligible tribal families receive individual and community titles and that their habitat and customary rights remain protected and prevent wrongful evictions and expedite settlement process: MoTA has been issuing directions and guidelines from time to time on various aspects to ensure proper implementation of the Act. Further review meetings are regularly being held from time to time with the State Tribal Welfare Department and concerned authorities. DC/DMs have been advised to dispose of all pending FRA Claims in time. Grievances /representations received in the Ministry regarding violation of FRA are forwarded to the State / UTs concerned, to ensure that legitimate claimants are not denied their forest rights. MoTA has been providing financial support to the districts under 'DhartiAabaJanjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan' (DA-JGUA)’ for setting up dedicated FRA cells at the State and district/subdivision levels, for a period of two years to facilitate the settlement process for pending claims (both community and individual), ensure timely convening of Sub-Divisional Level Committees (SDLC), District Level Committees (DLC), and other related bodies. MoTA has also issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the Setting up of FRA Cells. The ministry is urging states to prepare an FRA Atlas to map the potential forest areas which can be considered under FRA and undertake capacity building of all stakeholders. Further, Ministry has been providing financial support to the State Tribal Welfare Department for development and maintenance of the state-specific FRA portal (which includes dedicated server, cost of software, hardware, security audit, digital mapping of land records and other operational costs) under DA JGUA.Annexure No. of Claims received No. of Titles Distributed Claims Rejected upto S . upto 31.05.2025 upto 31.05.2025 31.05.2025 States No. Individu Commu Individu Commu Individu Commu Total Total Total al nity al nity al nity A n d h r a 1 285,098 3,294 288,392 226,651 1,822 228,473 56940 1470 58410 Pradesh 2 Assam 148,965 6,046 155,011 57,325 1,477 58,802 NA/NR NA/NR NA/NR 3 Bihar 4,696 0 4,696 191 0 191 4496 0 4496 Chhattisgar 4 890,220 57,259 947,479 481,432 52,636 534,068 403129 3658 406787 h 5 Goa 9,757 379 10,136 856 15 871 438 9 447 6 Gujarat 183,055 7,187 190,242 98,732 4,792 103,524 0 2331 2331 Himachal 7 4,883 683 5,566 662 146 808 52 2 54 Pradesh 8 Jharkhand 107,032 3,724 110,756 59,866 2,104 61,970 26370 1737 28107 9 Karnataka 288,549 5,940 294,489 14,981 1,345 16,326 249060 4209 253269 10 Kerala 44,455 1,014 45,469 29,422 282 29,704 12539 296 12835 M a d h y a 11 585,326 42,187 627,513 266,901 27,976 294,877 310216 12191 322407 Pradesh Maharashtr 12 397,897 11,259 409,156 199,667 8,668 208,335 170487 2144 172631 a 13 Odisha 701,148 35,024 736,172 462,067 8,832 470,899 144104 532 144636 14 Rajasthan 113,162 5,213 118,375 49,215 2,551 51,766 63466 2455 65921 15 Tamil Nadu 33,119 1,548 34,667 15,442 1,066 16,508 12293 418 12711 16 Telangana 651,822 3,427 655,249 230,735 721 231,456 92744 1682 94426 17 Tripura 200,557 164 200,721 127,931 101 128,032 68785 63 68848 U t t a r 18 92,972 1,194 94,166 22,537 893 23,430 70435 301 70736 Pradesh 19 Uttarakhand 3,587 3,091 6,678 184 1 185 3403 3090 6493 W e s t 20 131,962 10,119 142,081 44,444 686 45,130 87333 9254 96587 Bengal Jammu & 21 33,233 12,857 46,090 429 5,591 6,020 32727 7197 39924 Kashmir 4,911,49 5,123,10 2,389,67 2,511,37 TOTAL 211,609 121,705 1809017 53039 1862056 5 4 0 5 ***** RN (Release ID: 2147846)