Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition to Rights) Act and Rules 2008 is being implemented in Madhya Pradesh in a time-bound manner. At the review meetings held in New Delhi in February and May in connection with implementation of the Act, the Union government has praised Madhya Pradesh for implementation of the Act and has urged other states to send their teams to Madhya Pradesh to gather information about the ways and methods being adopted in the state for successful implementation. More than 80000 claims have been received from forest dwellers so far. Meanwhile, the state government has chalked out future strategy for implementing Forest Rights Act. It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had reviewed the progress of Forest Rights Act's implementation recently. He had instructed that as per rules rights on forest lands must be given to those forest dwellers who have been possessing the lands before December 13, 2005. The Chief Minister had also instructed that time-bound action should be taken in this regard with total sensitivity. He had also directed the officers to simplify the work of filling claim forms of forest dwellers and providing them guidance. Chouhan had said that every eligible forest dweller must be provided his rights and top priority must be given to this work. While expressing satisfaction over the progress of Forest Rights Act's implementation in the state, the Chief Minister had said that in this connection Madhya Pradesh is leading over other states. Several novel initiatives taken by Madhya Pradesh government for implementation of the Act drew all round praise at the review meetings convened by the Union government. These include appointment of nodal officers, constitution of state, district and sub-division level committees, translation of the Act in regional, local and tribal dialects and large-scale arrangements for publicity and awareness. Other steps which also helped the state establish a lead over other states in implementation of the Act include meetings of Gram Sabhas, constitution of Forest Rights Committees, issuance of notification for claims' receipt by Grams Sabhas and evolution of a monitoring system software with the help of information technology. As per division-wise break-up, 6575 claims have been received from forest dwellers in Bhopal, 3691 in Hoshangabad, 8987 in Indore, 1506 in Ujjain, 403 in Chambal, 26614 in Gwalior, 242 in Sagar, 12598 in Jabalpur and 20058 in Rewa. Meanwhile, an advance action plan has been chalked out taking into consideration the problems that might crop up in future in the implementation of Forest Rights Act. Accordingly, all the districts would be provided PDA machines by May 30: . On June 4, hands-on training would be imparted to master trainers and members of survey teams. The work of survey and verification would begin from June 10. Ten street plays each would be staged and claim forms distributed in the districts from where less claims have been received. Incentive honorarium has been fixed for those who would help the forest dwellers in completing their claim forms, arranging witnesses and extend co-operation in verification process. Instructions have been issued to Gram Sabhas to start the process of decision/resolution from June 15. The notice forms for verification/survey would be provided by the Forest Rights Committee to all the concerning districts by May 30.