Habitat Rights Granted to Baiga Tribal Group

GS Paper I Indian Society

Context:

The Baiga, Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) became the second to get habitat rights in the state of Chattisgarh, after the Kamar PVTG.

The Baiga community primarily resides in the Rajnandgaon, Kawardha, Mungeli, Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi (GPM), Manendra-Bharatpur-Chirmiri, and Bilaspur districts of the state.
19 Baiga villages with a population of 6,483 people (2,085 families) have been given the habitat rights.
Kamar tribes have a population of 26, 622 in four districts. Till now, 22 Para/Tola (hamlets) with a population of around 2,500 people from Magarlod development block in Dhamtari district have got it.What are habitat rights?
Habitat rights are given to PVTGs under section 3(1) (e) of The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 also known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
Habitat rights recognition provides the community with rights over their customary territory of habitation, socio-cultural practices, economic and livelihood means, intellectual knowledge of biodiversity and ecology, traditional knowledge of the use of natural resources, and protection and conservation of their natural and cultural heritage.

Habitats: Section 2 (h) of FRA, “Habitat includes the area comprising the customary habitat and such other habitats in reserved forests and protected forests of primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities and other forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes.”

In 1973, the Dhebar Commission created Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) as a separate category, who are less developed among the tribal groups.
In 2006, the Government of India renamed the PTGs as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) and follows the following criteria for identifiaction of PVTGs.
- Pre-agricultural level of technology
- Low level of literacy
- Economic backwardness
- A declining or stagnant population.
The ministry has identified 75 PVGTs in 18 states and one Union Territory. Out of 75 PVTG in India, only three have habitat rights.
The Bharia PVTG in Madhya Pradesh was the first, followed by the Kamar tribe and now the Baiga tribe in Chhattisgarh.
In 2019, the MoTA started a scheme for their protection and improvement in terms of social indicators like livelihood, health, nutrition and education to decrease their vulnerability.
PM PVTG Mission: In the budget of 2023, the Government announced a mission to develop Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups. 22,544 villages with about 28 lakh PVTG population have been identified to saturate essential services under the scheme.