Twenty years ago, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) was born with a clear consensus to correct historic injustices. Its intent was not just to recognise the rights of tribal and forest-dwelling communities and grant titles but to bring about a radical shift in forest governance. Thus, moving away from a suppressive, exclusionary and colonial model to a community-led and democratic one.
In 2026, we stand at a critical juncture. Two decades on, the Act has shown how recognising forest rights can go a long way in shaping better futures for all. From 2006 until the middle of 2025, around 5.12 million applications for rights have been submitted and 2.38 million titles for individuals, and over 120,000 for communities (covering 5.5 million acres for families, 18.3 million for communities) have been given to those who applied. Yet, the experience also points to gaps. Rights for communities to use and manage forests, given to gram sabhas, have been slower to be achieved. Roughly 1.86 million applications have been refused, and many are still awaiting a decision, mostly because of complicated procedural issues, even though there’s often good proof to back them up.
Time and again instances have shown that the law needs more than just recognising past injustices and moving beyond to ensure that rights are exercised in ways that strengthen livelihoods and equity. Bringing the tribal and forest dwelling communities to the decision-making matrix is the need of the hour. What this truly demands to make it real is an alliance that fosters a collaborative framework between Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), Community-Based Organisations (CBOs), and Forest Administration. In short, a locality compact which makes connections by bringing local institutions, communities and bureaucracy together to work on practical solutions with a collective vision.
Such institutional mechanisms are active and are showing results in many localities across our country’s rural landscape. Transform Rural India (TRI), a development design organisation, is supporting the co-creation of such community-led institutional frameworks. TRI empowers communities and women-led collectives to identify eligible claimants, gather proof, and get gram sabhas going. Panchayats then give official approval and look at things to ensure they’re done correctly, and lastly, officials at the block and district levels help with creating maps, giving final approval, and combining the rights with other development programmes. Therefore, taking FRA 2006 further to look at its economic, social and ecological aspects and build flourishing communities.
The women who lead change are often called badlav didis (change vectors) and are the ones who make the law actually happen. They help villages get their claims in order, improve participation at gram sabhas and give families the strength to deal with official procedures.
In Simdega district, women who have always gathered sal seeds, mahua, and other things from the forest, and didn’t have much power to ask for a good price, have started to work together. In 2025, over 1000 women from 60 villages had their first big sale of sal seeds. They sold 44.5 tonnes, which brought in almost 14.3 lakh rupees. However, this wasn’t only about the money. Because they organised the collecting of the seeds, checked the quality, did the bank accounts, and talked to the people they were selling to, these women have gone from being overlooked when they collected from the forest to being seen as equal participants in the economy.
Moving forward, the FRA 2006 must treat livelihoods, environment and rights as inseparable elements of the Act. Jharkhand’s Didi Bagiya scheme shows how they can be combined. As part of the scheme, women’s Self-Help Groups grow saplings of trees for wood and fruit on their own land. The state then buys these for planting trees. 228 of these nurseries created over 19 lakh wood saplings and more than 35,000 fruit saplings, which give a fair income to women farmers while helping to protect the environment.
Birsa Harit Gram Yojana (BHGY) has taken the idea of combining tree planting with how people in villages make their living even further. The scheme helps families and communities to develop fruit orchards, timber plantations, and land improvements. In doing so, it links looking after the environment with livelihood creation. When this is tied in with Didi Bagiya nurseries, it creates a local system where villages are not just implementing plantation work, but also growing the trees and saplings which are used for the tree planting.
The Palamu district of Jharkhand shows an even more resilient rural system. Women-led water user groups in Satbarwa are irrigating over 700 acres using solar-powered pumps. They don’t need to rely on unpredictable rainfall or expensive diesel pumps. At the same time, more than 170 acres are being developed into high-density fruit orchards, creating stable, long-term incomes. Farmers are also using soil testing and automated weather stations to make more informed decisions, improving productivity while reducing input use. Together, these efforts demonstrate how community-led systems, supported by technology, can build a more climate-resilient rural economy.
The FRA wasn’t only meant to fix unfairness from the past, but to improve conservation as well. Rural Jharkhand is proving that when villages get secure rights and responsibility for the forest, they start to conserve and renew it. In Jharkhand around 20,000 tribal women farmers are getting collectivised under Birsa Bagwani Samudaiyik Samriddhi Trust to boost carbon sugarcation through Agro Forestry by tapping the global carbon market. These interventions are not only making landscapes biodiversity-rich but also places where community governance can strengthen climate resilience.
So, the FRA has to do much more than just hand out ownership documents. India needs to get claims done quickly and equitably, truly acknowledge the rights of communities, build up the power of gram sabhas and properly connect the FRA to things like jobs, water for farming, climate resilience, food and strengthening the local economy.
Many states like Jharkhand have shown that recognising rights is only the foundation. The real strength of the Act lies in how communities (especially women) and gram sabhas are able to exercise their rights, and how these rights are sustained and embedded in local governance and in collective decisions on the future of forests and livelihoods.
Recognising women as participants in the governance of the Act and not just the receiver/beneficiary can serve as a catalyst for a wider agenda of how forest ecology and economy will go forward together. As we look and decipher how effective the implementation of the FRA so far is, we also need to strategise how to make it more effective for the future.
This article is authored by Rupak Ghosh and Bapi Gorai, senior practitioners, Transform Rural India.
