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The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has asked the State governments to identify thrust areas for each tribal area and prepare schemes based on land and water management. Under this “cluster approach”, the focus would now be on schemes that enhance income-generating activities and creating infrastructure of the tribal villages.
Addressing the press at the 5th Editor’s Conference on the Social Sector Issues, Minister for Tribal Affiars, Shri P R Kyndiah said that the attention now would be to help in uplifting entire village, instead of distributing aid to individual families, which spreads the resources too thin.
The ministry has decided to fund schemes for watershed development, minor irrigation, horticulture, food processing and creation of infrastructure for storage, medicinal plants preservation and propagation and branding and marketing of handicrafts.
State Governments have been requested to prepare comprehensive land based plans for overall development of the Scheduled Tribes by taking up the developmental activities including minor irrigation on lands owned by STs.
A process of consultation with the State governments at the regional level has also been initiated so as to have State-wise in-depth discussion. The first regional Conference to approve such projects for the Western Region was held at Udaipur on 3rd of August this year. The second regional Conference to approve such projects for the Central region was held at Raipur, Chhattisgarh on 10th September. Meetings were also held at New Delhi with the States of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland for sanction of projects under SCA to TSP and Article 275(1) of the Constitution. This is being done for the first time in 25 years since the scheme was initiated.
The Ministry has received some proposals from the State Governments of Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh, MP, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, etc., a few reputed NGOs like SADGURU and also specific projects for development of land of Primitive Tribal Groups like Chenchus.
The Ministry has finalized projects under Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub Plan (SCA to TSP) for the current year focusing on the land-based activities. Under this scheme there is a provision of Rs 497 cr. this year, of which Rs.346.78 lakh has already been released for the above mentioned schemes. Further, against the budget provision of Rs.330 crore under the Art.275(1) of the Constitution, Rs.115.40 crore has been released so far for infrastructure projects like bridges, roads, schools, hostels, community halls and irrigation facilities. An additional demand of Rs.200 crores has also been made to the Planning Commission for development of tribal lands through minor irrigation and other water harvesting structures.
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