Javaid Rahi, secretary tribal foundation, said that since the Conservation Act, 1980 was not extended to Jammu and Kashmir in the presence of Article 370, nomadic communities suffered a lot owing to non-existence of a similar act for rehabilitation in Jammu and Kashmir or any other law.
The Gujjar-Bakerwal Schedule Tribe today demanded the adaptation of a national model to develop "forest villages" for tribal and nomadic groups of Jammu and Kashmir on the prototype of other Indian states and extension of the National Conservation Act, 1980 to the state for the constitutional rehabilitation of their tribe in the areas belonging to them since centuries.
In an appeal to state governor NN Vohra and chief minister Omar Abdullah, the ST communities sought intervention of dignitaries for extension of legal provision in the state for Jammu and Kashmir tribes and pleaded vigorously for constitutional safeguards to rehabilitate in such forest villages lakhs of nomadic and semi-nomadic Gujjar-Bakerwal population who are land-less, shelter-less and living below the poverty line in hilly and border areas of the Jammu and Kashmir.
The appeal was made through the Tribal Research and Cultural Foundation, a frontal organisation of Gujjars.
Javaid Rahi, secretary tribal foundation, said that since the Conservation Act, 1980 was not extended to Jammu and Kashmir in the presence of Article 370, nomadic communities suffered a lot owing to non-existence of a similar act for rehabilitation in Jammu and Kashmir or any other law.
The Gujjar-Bakerwal Tribe, he said, are still nomadic and are shelter-less and pressing hard for identical rights available to all Schedule Tribe Communities of India for their development and rehabilitation.
There are thousands of tribal forest villages in India developed with the financial assistance of the ministry of tribal affair, government of India, in different states but nomads of Jammu and Kashmir are without any such facilities in the state.
The development of tribal forest villages on national patterns can also be helpful in exploring forest tourism potential in Jammu and Kashmir, Rahi said.
Such provision of rehabilitation will also help a lot in stabilising tribal economy of Gujjars and Bakerwals, he said.
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