Reinforcing belief in the Gram Panchayat

Gompu is an unrecognized forest village in Chiriya panchayat of Manoharpur block. There are 45 households with a population of 225. Since it is an unrecognized forest village, and not a revenue village, the residing community is deprived of their rights and entitlements so far. As a consequence, their living conditions are poor. For the last 4-5 years they have been longing to get their hamlet converted into a revenue village so that they can get the benefits of government schemes and programs. However, they were unable to move further due to lack of information on how to go about it. Their discussions with the forest officials were also not very encouraging.

With the inception of the community engagement process in the village, information on the role, functions and powers of the Gram Sabha were explained to the community. The first meeting of the Gram Sabha was called with the support of the concerned Panchayat facilitator. Conversion of the hamlet into a revenue village was the focal point of discussions in the meeting. This meeting initiated the process to convert their hamlet into a revenue village through the Gram Sabha. The community has taken a resolution to claim community forest rights under FRA and fill up the requisite claim forms and complete the related process at the level of the Gram Sabha through the constitution of the Forest Rights Committee (FRC) in the village. The process of demarcating the village boundary was also undertaken. Once the processes at the level of Gram Sabha are complete the community will send their recommendation to the Sub-Divisional Officer for further action.