Madhya Pradesh forest department's actions in Kosmi village, including demolitions and crop destruction, have sparked controversy.
Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has publicly spoken against the action.
Pending FRA claims and political disputes highlight the need for clarity on forest rights and the role of the State Forest Development Corporation in land management.
On the night of October 11, 2026, a team from the Madhya Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation arrived at Kosmi village with four excavators and four tractors. The team demolished temporary huts of 12 families in the village, all belonging to the Barela Advasi community, for allegedly encroaching upon forestland.
The forest department team also destroyed standing crops of maize and pigeon pea, filled an irrigation well with earth and stones and, according to the village residents, threatened the families with eviction.
Ikram Barela, one of the residents named for the encroachment, admits he has no document to prove ownership of the land upon which he cultivates. However, he is able to furnish a receipt from the state government acknowledging his claim for rights over the land, under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
Ikram Barela’s claim for individual forest rights under the law, also called the Forest Rights Act or FRA, was registered on December 11, 2025, according to Madhya Pradesh’s Forest Rights Act portal. Land verification was recorded on July 18, 2026, and on August 7, the sub-divisional committee forwarded the claim to the district forest rights committee. As of October 15, the final decision remains pending.
In this context, questions arise about the action taken on October 11: before carrying out the demolitions, did the forest rights officials consult the forest-rights portal, or consider pending claims over the land in question?
Kosmi’s claims over forestland
Kosmi village falls under the Singpur gram panchayat, in Nasrullaganj (now known as Bhairunda) and lies on the south of state capital Bhopal, towards the Narmada valley, amid vast expanses of forest.
Census-based data available with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru's Community Forest Resource Web GIS portal, records 145 households and a population of 998 residents belonging to Scheduled Tribes.
Within the village, it is difficult to draw a clear line between forest and settlement. The village covers 2,230 hectares (ha), of which 1,621 ha are classified as forest and 509 ha as agricultural land. Forest thus accounts for nearly three-quarters of the village area.
On maps, the village’s revenue boundaries overlap with forest compartments administered by the forest department, as is common in villages situated within forest areas. Land that the department records as forest may also have been inhabited and cultivated by local communities for generations. FRA is intended, in part, to address this historical reality.
Forest department report raises questions
In the week after the Kosmi demolitions, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has publicly spoken against the action. Chouhan, former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, also staged a sit-in in support of the residents and criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government.
Following this, at the direction of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, the district collector conducted an inquiry and sent a report to the state government.
The report identifies nine people, including Ikram Barela, as alleged encroachers. It claims that they had occupied 31.48 ha of forest land after destroying 78,700 teak saplings planted by the Madhya Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation. Using Google Earth imagery, the report states that the occupation began in 2022.
However, the receipt furnished by Ikram Barela raises questions over these claims. Section 4(5) of FRA protects eligible forest-dwellers from eviction from forest land they occupy until the process of recognising and verifying their rights has been completed. This does not mean that filing a claim automatically establishes ownership. But proceeding with eviction while disregarding a pending claim is no longer acceptable.
Since the collector himself chairs the district forest rights committee, establishing the status of pending claims should have been a part of inquiry. However, the available account of the inquiry does not mention any examination of these claims.
It is worth noting here that for an individual forest-rights claim, occupation before December 13, 2005, is an important consideration. Residents of Kosmi possess some documents relating to earlier actions by the forest department, including records from 2006 and later. They say that some older documents cannot currently be found. This raises questions on the veracity of the administration’s assertion that the occupation began in 2022.
The role of the Madhya Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation also deserves scrutiny. Established in July 1975, under the Companies Act, 1956, the corporation is involved in commercial plantations and forest production. Its stated objectives include improving the social and economic conditions of people living near forests. According to the collector’s inquiry, 186.96 ha of forest land in Kosmi were transferred from the territorial forest division to the corporation in 2020. The corporation says it planted 337,500 teak saplings across 135 ha of the transferred land.
But transferring the management of forest land to a government-owned company is an administrative decision. Recognising the forest rights of eligible residents already occupying that land is a separate statutory process established by Parliament. The transfer of land to the corporation does not extinguish the rights of eligible forest dwellers already on the land.
The question, therefore, is not simply who encroached on the corporation’s land. It is also why the status of individual and community forest rights was not established before the transfer took place.
Residents of Kosmi say that forest compartment number 426, which has been handed over to the corporation, falls within the traditional boundaries of their village. If this is the case, it raises the question of recognising the community forest resource rights of the gram sabha under FRA.
The affected communities had announced plans to march on foot to Bhopal. The march was postponed after a meeting between Chouhan and Yadav. The political dispute may have subsided for now, but the question of forest rights remains unresolved.
To establish a clear way forward the forest department and the state government should publish historical satellite images, forest working plans, encroachment registers dating from before 2005 and other relevant official records. Copies should be made available to gram sabhas and panchayats so that residents can use them to substantiate their claims. Further, like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh can also take steps to make old working plans and encroachment registers available online.