No provision in the Forest Rights Act to get gram sabha approval for projects, says Tribal Affairs Ministry

Image is for representational purposes only. File | Photo credit: M. Periasamy

In discussions with the Union Ministry of Power on government projects delayed due to the “critical bottleneck” of “100% gram sabha approval under the Forest Rights Act (FRA)” for forest felling, the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry said the 2006 Act “does not contain any provision for obtaining gram sabha approval for forest clearance”, adding that “such matters of the Ministry are not “view of the sabha” under the sabha act.

In an official communication from the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) Desk of the Ministry of Power dated August 31, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs said, “There is no provision for obtaining approval of the Gram Sabha for felling of forests for Phase II of forest clearance in the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. Therefore, these matters do not come under the purview of the Ministry and the rules. matters.”

While the FRA itself does not have language of gram sabha approval specifically with respect to diversion of forest land for non-forestry purposes, the Union Government rules and regulations governing forest diversion specifically require that all processes under the FRA be completed before the appropriate government authority can issue a certificate of formal forest diversion.

These guidelines under the Forest Protection Act, 1980 require identification of potential FRA applicants, recognition of their rights where appropriate, grant of such rights and subsequent obtaining of No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the respective gram sabhas regarding the proposal to divert the said forest land for a specified purpose – all in accordance with the FRA regulation. This procedure of obtaining NOC from the gram sabha is what has commonly come to be known as the procedure for granting gram sabha approval for forest clearance. The FRA specifically states that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal ministry responsible for the implementation of the Act.

Supreme Court advocate Shomona Khanna, a former legal adviser to the tribal affairs ministry under the United Progressive Alliance-National Democratic Alliance government, responded to the ministry’s stance on the FRA, saying, “This is bizarre. If such matters do not come under the purview of the tribal affairs ministry, under whose purview does it come?”

Parliamentary Panel Report

The talks between the Union Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs were initiated following the August 3 report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Enterprises on NHPC Limited. In this report, the committee, based on discussions with NHPC officials, found that the average time for deforestation for projects under construction was 106 months and that the requirement for all stakeholders to agree to divert forest land needed for the projects has become “the single most critical bottleneck, with projects like the Teesta-IV HEP being put on hold indefinitely as consent from small Panchayas remains”.

In its report, the committee, led by BJP MP Baijayanta Panda, followed the NHPC’s recommendation that “qualified supermajority consent” — consent of 70-75% of the gram sabhas concerned — should be sufficient for “major hydro infrastructure projects of national importance”. The House panel thus recommended that the Ministry of Power discuss the “feasibility” of such a proposal with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. The committee stated: “The 100% consent requirement, while socially well-intentioned, has in practice occasionally led to prolonged schedule deviations caused by particular segments of stakeholders, impacting the schedules of projects of national importance.”

The tribal affairs ministry’s stand on distancing itself from matters related to gram sabha consent to deforestation is in line with the stand it has taken in landmark cases related to the issue such as the Nicobar mega-infrastructure project or other independent cases related to the implementation of FRA in states like Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and many others. In these forest rights cases too, the tribal affairs ministry has claimed that it has no role, saying it is because the FRA directs the implementation of the law to the state or Union territory governments.

Published – 06 Sep 2026 23:25 IST