Tribal women walking to their village in Chhattisgarh. Image for representation only. Photo Credit: AP
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced the Pradhan Mantri-PVTG Development Mission to focus on improving the overall socio-economic conditions of 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups across the country, spread across 18 states and one union territory of India. Live in about 31,000 villages of the state. The announcement was made during the presentation of the Union Budget for 2022-23.
Ms. Sitharaman said the central government is putting forward an expenditure outlay of Rs 15,000 crore to make this amount available over the next three years for the implementation of the mission.
The Finance Minister said, “This will enable PVTG families and settlements to have basic amenities like safe housing, clean drinking water and sanitation, better access to education, health and nutrition, road and telecom connectivity and sustainable livelihood opportunities.” The amount set aside for this will be spent under the Scheduled Tribes Development Action Plan.
The detailed budget statement for the financial year 2023-24 shows that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has been allocated a total of Rs 12,461.88 crore, out of which Rs 256.14 crore has been allocated to the ministry’s scheme for development of PVTGs.
Senior officials of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs told The Hindu that its own plan for the development of PVTGs is a small component of the PM-PVTG mission. “But as the finance minister said, the target is to build roads, telecom connectivity, water and sanitation. The money for these efforts will go to the Scheduled Tribes Component (STC) of these respective ministries from where it will be allocated for the development of these groups.
The ministries that are expected to be involved in implementing the PM-PVTG mission are the Ministry of Rural Development, through which the housing component and road connectivity will be implemented; the Ministry of Water Resources, under whose Jal Jeevan Mission clean drinking water connections will be taken care of; the Ministry of Education, which will take care of the construction of schools and hostels; and the Ministry of Health, which will consider filling gaps in healthcare for PVTGs.
Apart from this, the Ministry of Women and Child Development is also going to involve Anganwadi workers to work towards sensitization of PVTGs and ensure that they are able to sign up for government benefits.
“Most of these 31,000 villages are most in need of infrastructure development,” said a senior tribal affairs ministry official.
Tribal Affairs Ministry’s development plan for PVTGs, which has been running since 2008, has already provided livelihood, employment opportunities, education, health, provision of safe drinking water, land distribution, land development, social security, housing and housing, connectivity (Roads and Telecom), power supply, irrigation, urban development etc.
However, expenditure reports show that expenditure under the scheme has declined significantly in the last five years since 2018-19, when ₹250 crore was spent on it. The following year, it declined to ₹249.99 crore, fell further to ₹140 crore in 2020–21, increased slightly to ₹160 crore in 2021–22, and then to ₹124.79 crore in 2022–23.
Ministry officials said the reason for this drop in spending was initially the COVID-19 pandemic, “but more so because the money we were approving to the states was not being spent properly, lying in their coffers”. happened”.