IMPACT OF DIFFERENT WELFARE SCHEMES ONSOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF FOREST DWELLERS IN MADHYA PRADESH

The Parliament, on 29 December 2006, passed a historic legislation called The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, popularly called FRA, 2006, to recognize and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs). One of the objectives of the Act is to strengthen the conservation regime of the forests while ensuring livelihood and food security of the forest dwellers. While recognizing and vesting various rights in forest dwelling STs & OTFDs several welfare schemes to improve the productivity of forest land recognized and thereby to uplift the socio-economic status of forest dwellers have been carried out. Besides, the development rights provided under Section 3(2) for creation of infrastructure etc. in the villages also play an important role in this direction. A study was conducted to assess the FRA's impact on socio-economic status of the forest dwellers in Madhya Pradesh considering that the State has got extensive forest areas, large forest dwelling tribal communities, presence of diverse agro-ecological zones, and being pioneer in the implementation of FRA. Survey was carried out in six districts viz. Chhindwara, Mandla, Badwani, Khargone, Shahdol and Sidhhi and the result reveals that different welfare schemes implemented for the benefits of forest dwellers and recognized forest land have created overall positive impacts on their socio-economic status, post implementation of FRA 2006.