Vanmitra

The website ‘MahaVanmitra’ has been developed with the objective of effective implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 and Rules 2008 and Amendment Rules 2012. This portal has been developed keeping in mind the objective of allowing the eligible individuals and their villages / padas from the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers to file their claims without any mistakes and in time, to check the current status of the old as well as newly filed claims, and to be able to get the forest rights title (certificate) without any hassles.

First of all, you need to go to the Internet browser and visit the MahaVanmitra.mkcl.org website and login through it. Login facility has been provided to all kinds of people including Village Forest Rights Committee, Sub-division Level Committee, District Level Committee, Gram Sevak, Tehsildar, Forest Rights Law Facilitator. However, individual claimants need to register themselves on it and then get a login, so that they can use this system independently through their login.

Along with the respective government officers, administrative chiefs of the villages, Gram Sevak, Village Forest Rights Committee from the respective villages or Pada/Tanda/Tole/Vadi, Sub-division Level Committee office can use this system. Villagers who are from Scheduled Castes or are Other Traditional Forest Dwellers also can use this system to file Individual Forest Rights claims.

• Gram Sevak will make a record of the Village Forest Rights Committees of the village, Pada/Tanda/Tole/Vadas into the system using his login. Shall take initiative in forming committees through the system for such places of the village or Pada, who do not have any forest rights committee formed for them. • Individual claimants shall register on the website; shall create their login and password. With the help of it, they will login and register their claim in a proper way. They will complete the necessary procedure one after another on it such as filling the information about the claim, downloading/uploading the necessary documents, etc. • Forest Rights Committee shall register the claims of the claimants through their login and shall fill the details regarding the verification meeting conducted as per the verification program planned through the system in regards to the verification of claims, shall enter all the information necessary for the claim and shall download, scan and upload documents, and shall send all this to the Sub-division Level Committee through the system. • The Sub-division Level Committee shall scrutinize all the documents of the claims received using their login and shall record a remark in front of each submitted document. After complete verification of the documents related to forest rights claims, shall send the said claim/claims to the District Level Committee for their recommendation, through the ‘MahaVanmitra’ system. • The District Level Committee shall take information about the claims recommended by the Sub-division Level Committee through their login. Shall record decision about each recommended forest rights claim through the system. A sample certificate for each approved forest rights claim shall be prepared in the ‘MahaVanmitra’ system. The District Level Committee shall download this prepared sample certificate and add the necessary signature and seal /attestation to it and shall upload it to the ‘MahaVanmitra’ system

Using this system is going to speed up the process of filing claims, from filing the claim to acquiring forest rights title (certificate), for the eligible villagers or villages/Padas and also the individual claimants, drastically. Through this, individual claimants, Village Forest Rights Committee, Gram Sevaks, Sub-division Level Committee and District Level Committee, all these will be able to perform their jobs in a planned manner. The forest rights claims filed with the help of information and technology shall not be stalled at any point. Decisions shall be taken within stipulated time period. The process that will take place through the system shall be recorded systematically. At the same time, the current status of the claims also shall be known.

It will be easy for individual claimants to apply through this system. The application is going to be registered directly into the system and you will be able to get a receipt of it too. It is going to be easy to follow-up on the application through the system because you will be able to know as to what process has been done on your application for now and where is it pending right now, such information will be available to the claimant at a click, through his login by visiting ‘Current Status of Claim’. You will not need to run pillar to post. In short, the troubles of the citizens in acquiring the Forest Rights Certificate are going to be reduced considerably.

The Village Forest Rights Committee is going to get records about the various claims of the village in a comfortable manner. It is going to make it easy to put together the documents necessary for the claims. It is going to be possible to download some sample documents based on the information that has been furnished in the system at the initial stages. It is going to be possible to upload the documents there itself again after entering the necessary information in them. It is not required to take the claim documents to the Taluka Territory Office. Hence, a lot of commuting is going to be saved. And they are going to know the current status of all their claims. Not only this, once the District Level Committee approves their claim and uploads the approval certificate to the system, the Village Forest Rights Committee can download the same immediately through their login.

All the claims are going to be available to the Sub-division Level Committee in the form of soft copies in the system. Therefore, it will not be required to take care of all the documents related to the claims. As the documents related to the claims have been uploaded in a systematic manner, it is going to be easy and faster to scrutinize/verify them through the system. Also, it is going to be easy to add their remarks and send the claim forward to the District Level Committee for their recommendation or to the Village Forest Rights Committee for them to reconsider the claim. As it has already become easy to do GPS measurement through the MahaVan App, the entire time spent on doing the GPS measurement of the required location for the claim will be saved. At the same time, the required reports and analysis is going to be made available.

Just like the Sub-division Level Committee, this system is going to be helpful to the District Level Committee also. In this, once a claim is approved, a certificate is going to be generated through the system for the respective claimant. As there is the facility of downloading the sample of the same and uploading it again by attesting it or adding the necessary signature and seal, it is going to be made available to the Village Forest Rights Committee’s login immediately. This will help the District Level Committee to resolve the claims in time and to issue the certificate to the claimants immediately, and hence, the time saved can be used to complete the next process

The more precise information we enter, it is going to help settle our forest rights claims faster. Wherever it is mandatory to fill in the information, there is a * sign shown for it.

‘MahaVanmitra’ system is absolutely free to use. It has been made freely available to the Chief Minister’s office, Government of Maharashtra by Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) under the guidance of Tribal Research and Training Institute. Any digitally-literate person can benefit from this facility for free. But, if someone is helping you enter information into the system then you can pay that person his/her services charges because the respective person or organization is going to spend their valuable time for you. However, this cannot be specifically mentioned as to what service charges need to be paid by the citizens to the respective person or organization. What service charges should be paid for the said services, will need to be mutually decided by the person availing the services and the person/organization providing the services

Certainly yes! This system shall be available on the website mahavan.mkcl.org and also its App, named as MahaVanmitra, can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. The website and the App, both can be used from any Internet-enabled mobile.

• This system has been developed to settle the new/pending forest rights claims in time and the complete functioning of this system is being overlooked by the Tribal Research and Training Institute on behalf of the Chief Minister’s office. MKCL’s participation is restricted only to the development of the system as per their guidance. Therefore, MKCL cannot be held responsible for aspects such as pending claims, settlement of claims or disapproval of claims. • MKCL has made this system available to all for free, and it can be easily used through your mobile too. But, if someone is helping you use this system and if they are charging some money for the same then to pay that amount or not is solely the user’s decision. MKCL shall not be held responsible for the same.
• Sometimes, some technical problem can arise while using system. In such a situation, proper care will be taken to take immediate action in order to avoid delays in your work.