Bengaluru, August 22: Govind M. Karjol, BJP MP from Chitradurga and former Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, raised several crucial issues concerning the welfare of tribal communities in Karnataka during a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Welfare.
On Friday, Karjol drew the attention of officials from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to the Forest Development Centers, the PM-Janmana scheme, the release of pending funds, and applications pending under the Forest Rights Act.
He noted that while 140 Forest Development Centers have been approved in Karnataka, only 69 are currently operational, with 71 yet to be launched. He inquired about the reasons for the delays and when the remaining centers would become operational.
Karjol highlighted that ₹20.87 crore had been sanctioned for Karnataka, but only ₹11.86 crore has been released so far, leaving approximately ₹9.01 crore still pending. He urged the ministry to expedite the release of the pending funds.
He mentioned that under the PM-Janmana scheme, 33 Forest Development Centers have been approved for Karnataka, of which 21 are operational while 12 have not yet started. He called for identifying the reasons for the delays and demanded that these centers be launched promptly.
Karjol also requested a district-wise performance report of the 69 operational Forest Development Centers, including details on the number of beneficiaries, sanctioned and released amounts, expenditures, operational status, products being developed, sales data, and income information for tribal communities.
He expressed concern over the large number of rejected applications under the Forest Rights Act in Karnataka. According to the data presented during the meeting, a total of 295,176 applications have been received in the state, of which 262,626 have been rejected. Only 16,700 applications have been approved and rights certificates issued, while 15,850 applications remain pending.
Karjol questioned the reasons for such a high rate of application rejections and sought clarification on the delays in resolving pending applications. He also requested information on the steps being taken to expedite the resolution of these pending cases.
He asked for district-wise statistics detailing received, approved, rejected, and pending applications, as well as information on distributed forest rights certificates.
Senior officials from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs assured Karjol that all the issues he raised would be reviewed based on priority and necessary actions would be taken promptly.
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