Women's forest rights groups on Tuesday demanded sorting out technical problems to enable single women get forest land as per the law.

"Applications of tribal single women to get forest land as per law are being rejected on technical grounds. This must be sorted out at the earliest," Vasavi Kiro, member of Jharkhand Women's Commission, told a press conference organised jointly with the Women Forest Rights Action Committee.

Applications of single women like widows are being rejected on the pretext of surnames, she said adding that an NGO is helping the women.

As per the Forests Rights Act, 2006, individuals and communities belonging to schedule tribes and other forest dwellers should get the forest land in which they have been producing minor forest produce for decades with December 13, 2005 being the cut off mark.

Another problem, Vasavi added, is that 50 per cent of about 34,000 applications submitted by the beneficiaries to get land under the law have been rejected by Gram Sabhas in Jharkhand.

Claiming that Jharkhand has been lagging behind other states in the implementation of the Forest Right Act, she said a two-day national level conference on the issue would be held from tomorrow with tribal welfare minister Champai Soren inaugurating it to highlight various problems being faced by the target beneficiaries.

"Jharkhand has about 150 minor forest produce and should be enlisted by the state's monitoring committee to help the tribal and other entitled women depending on them for their livelihood," she said and claimed the committee had not met for the last two months.