Nagpur: In utter disregard of state information commission (SIC), a statutory agency, forest department has failed to supply information on area encroached under Forest Rights Act ( FRA ), 2006. The activist, who sought this information, feels that this is to hide the failure of the department to free forest land from encroachments.SIC after hearing the second appeal filed by RTI activist Avinash Prabhune had passed orders directing the department to supply relevant information to the applicant. The order was uploaded on its website in June.However, the office of the additional principal chief conservator of forests (conservation) instead of supplying information wrote to Prabhune after a month that the required details might be available with district collectors and not with the department.The original RTI application seeking information regarding FRA titles and other details dates back to July 17, 2017. Shockingly, even after a year the department, which is custodian of forest land, and tribal commissioner in Nashik, who is the nodal officer for FRA, failed to supply details on area under encroachments and that freed from it.Both the departments are passing the buck. The tribal commissioner says data on encroachments and area under it is available with the forest department while latter says that the details are available with district collectors as they are head of the district-level committees rejecting or accepting the FRA claims.However, Prabhune says even if committee on claims under FRA is headed by district collectors, a forest officer is also one of the members of this panel.“Collectors merely reject or accept titles pertaining to forest land and hence forest department should supply the details. It seems forest officials are deliberately not giving information as no action might have been taken against encroachers,” said Prabhune.FRA has two components — individual forest rights (IFRs) and community forest rights (CFRs). While there are negligible cases under CFRs, which pertains to extraction of forest produce by communities, FRA encroachments in individual category are very high.Under FRA the individual titles for forest land that have been rejected are considered encroachments and should be cleared by forest officials. Till last year, since the implementation of FRA in 2010, 2.80 lakh individual claims have been rejected in 26 districts of the state.“If the forest department and tribal commissioner have data on rejected titles, they should also have the same on area under it and subsequently on area freed from illegal possession,” says Prabhune.Till now, 1,08,593 individuals have been granted titles over 2,59,579 acres of forest land, but both, forest and tribal department, don’t have any information regarding area encroached under the FRA.

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