IMPLEMENTATION OF FRA

• Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 vests legal recognition of pre-existing forest rights of Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) whose rights went unrecorded.
• Nodal ministry: Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA); implemented by State/UT governments through a 3-tier structure (Gram Sabha → SDLC → DLC).
• UPSC relevance: intersects tribal rights, federalism, forest governance, and "Jal-Jangal-Zameen" debate — recurrently tested in GS-II and GS-III.