A protest in Coimbatore has brought renewed attention to the eviction of tribal families from the Megamalai forest region in Tamil Nadu’s Theni district, with the Tamil Nadu Tribal People’s Association demanding implementation of the Forest Rights Act, land pattas and permanent housing for displaced households.
Members of the association staged the protest outside the Coimbatore district collectorate on Monday and submitted their demands to the district administration. The group called for immediate government intervention to prevent further evictions and to protect the traditional rights and livelihoods of communities living in the Megamalai region.
N Natarajan, a member of the association, alleged that tribal communities who had lived on their ancestral lands for generations were being treated as encroachers by the state and central governments. He said the communities depended on the forest for their livelihoods and that authorities should act to protect their traditional access to the area.
The protesters sought the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The legislation provides a framework for recognising the rights of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers over forest land and resources. The association’s demand places the dispute within a wider administrative question: whether families living in forest regions have been assessed and supported through the rights-recognition process before displacement action is taken.
The group also demanded that eligible families living in the region be issued land pattas. It called for the Union and Tamil Nadu governments to jointly construct permanent houses for tribal families who had been displaced from their traditional habitats.
For the affected households, the association said, the issue extends beyond shelter. Access to ancestral land and forest resources is closely connected to livelihoods, making rehabilitation a question of both housing and economic security. The protesters therefore urged authorities to provide comprehensive rehabilitation rather than limit the response to relocation.
Natarajan alleged that evictions were being carried out in the name of development and asked the government to stop removing tribal families from their traditional habitats. The association did not provide details in the supplied report on the number of families affected, the dates of the evictions, the specific government agencies involved or the legal status of individual claims.
The protest also highlights the institutional complexity of displacement in forest regions. The demands submitted to the Coimbatore district administration concern families located in Megamalai, which lies in Theni district, while the association has appealed for coordinated action by both state and Union authorities. Any implementation response would therefore involve decisions on rights recognition, land documentation, housing provision and rehabilitation across multiple administrative levels.
The association urged the authorities to safeguard the communities’ access to ancestral land and forest resources and to prevent further displacement. No response from the state or central governments was included in the report. The immediate next step is for the district administration and relevant government departments to consider the demands submitted by the protesters.
