Tribals in India: MoTA Revamps Schemes for Comprehensive Development

Scheme for tribals: Relevance

• GS 2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States

Tribal development in India: Context

• Recently, Ministry of Tribal Affairs have merged many schemes, revamped them, and have widened the scope of many schemes, for the Financial Cycle 2021-26.

Schemes for tribals in India

• Pre Matric and Post Matric Scholarship Scheme.
• Grants Under Article 275(1) of the Constitution
• SCA to TSS which has been now revamped as Pradhan Mantri Adi Adarsh Gram Yojna
• Grants for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG).
• Support to TRIs (Tribal Research Institutes).

Pre Matric and Post Matric Scholarship Scheme

• The Pre and Post Matric schemes are demand-based schemes and every ST student whose family income is upto Rs 2.5 lakhs is entitled to scholarship for pursuing education from class IX to Post Doctorate across India.
• The states have to send the proposal for the estimated expenditure during the financial year and advance upto 50% of Central share is released to the States.
• After the State has disbursed the scholarship to the students and has submitted UCs, the balance amount is released to State provided the State has contributed its share.

Grants under Article 275(1), SCA to TSS and PVTG scheme

• In respect of the above-mentioned schemes, the state is required to submit proposals duly approved by the State level executive committee (SLEC).
• Each state has been allocated share in these 3 schemes based on criteria of population of that state and geographical area.
• The funds are released to State after taking into account the unspent funds released in previous years, the status of utilization of funds and physical proposal report submitted on Adivasi Grant Management System (ADIGRAMS).

Support to TRIs

• Under this scheme, the funds are given to TRIs based on the proposals received from them for undertaking various activities like research projects, training, cultural exchange, organization of festivals, craft mela, painting and other competitions etc.

Revamped tribal schemes

The 3 schemes meant for comprehensive development of tribals are as under.

Pradhan Mantri Adi Adarsh Gram Yojna

• The scope of existing scheme of SCA to TSS has been broadened wherein comprehensive development of villages (where tribal population of more than 500 and 50% tribals) will be undertaken to develop these villages as Adarsh Gram, under ‘Pradhan Mantri Aadi Adarsh Gram Yojana’.
• For next five years an amount of Rs. 7276 cr. has been approved by the cabinet.

Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Vikas Mission

• The Mission seeks to achieve livelihood driven tribal development in the next five years through formation of Van Dhan groups who have been organized into Vandhan Kendras.
• The MFP gathered by tribals will be processed in these kendras and marketed through Van Dhan Producer Enterprises.
• New haats bazaar and ware houses will be developed in next 5 years as part of “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhyan”. TRIFED would be the nodal agency for implementing the scheme.
• The products produced will be marketed through Tribe India Stores.

Venture Capital Fund for STs

• An amount of Rs. 50 cr. has been sanctioned for the new scheme of ‘Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Tribes’ (VCF-ST), which is aimed at promoting Entrepreneurship among the STs.
• The VCF-ST scheme would be a social sector initiative to promote ST entrepreneurship and to support and incubate the start-up ideas by ST youth.

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