Women of the Bonda tribe, a forest-dwelling community, in their village in Odisha’s Malkangiri district bordering Andhra Pradesh. Classified as one of India’s Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, the Bonda tribal people traditionally used only beads and a strip of cloth to cover their bodies.
| Photo Credit: K.R. Deepak

As Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced to launch the Pradhan Mantri PVTG (Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group) Development Mission in order to saturate the PVTG families and habitations with basic facilities, Odisha being home to the highest number of PVTG communities in the country, is likely to be benefited the most.

In fact, given the amount of experience Odisha possesses in handling focused and holistic programmes for PVTGs in the past decade, the State could be a first as well as best-mover among all States as far as the newly announced tribal programme was concerned.

Of the 75 PVTGs identified in India, 13 such tribes live in Odisha. As per the 2018 baseline survey, 2,49,609 persons belonging to PVTGs (58,708 households) live in 1,679 habitations in 14 districts of the State.

Union Finance Minister, in her Budget speech, said an amount of ₹15,000 crore would be made available to implement the mission in the next three years, under the Development Action Plan for the Scheduled Tribes. It would be spent on basic facilities such as safe housing, clean drinking water and sanitation, improved access to education, health and nutrition, road and telecom connectivity, and sustainable livelihood opportunities.

More than four decades ago, Odisha had implemented a micro project to address the basic needs and behavioural change of PVTGs in the State. At present, there are 20 micro projects focusing on the development of PVTGs.

Beneficiary of CCD scheme

Odisha has also been a beneficiary of the Conservation cum Development (CCD) scheme, for which the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs allocates 100% financial assistance to the State Governments having PVTG communities.

Odisha has already made a move towards the PVTG-focused programme without knowing that such a national mission is coming up.

Since 2015, the Naveen Patnaik Government had launched the Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihoods Improvement Programme (OPELIP) at an estimated expenditure of ₹711 crore, spread over seven years. The State government had secured 46% assistance for the OPELIP in the shape of a loan from the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Under this programme, 542 habitations have been taken up for intervention.

“With lessons learnt from OPELIP implementation, Odisha is best placed to handle the Pradhan Mantri PVTG Development Mission. The State has been able to reach the last habitation of PVTG, through the programme. The government has already found out the gap,” said A. B. Ota, one of the country’s foremost tribal researchers.

Dr. Ota said the challenge for the national mission would be to bring out behavioural change. “Making development projects available to PVTGs is one aspect, but educating them to accept projects is a difficult task. This will be time-consuming. During the OPELIP implementation, the government has successfully oriented PVTGs to accept newer development model,” he pointed out.

OPELIP Programme Director P. Arthanari said the outcome of the State’s PVTG focused programme in agriculture, income generation, health and behavioural change were widely appreciated.

Odisha has 13 PVTGs followed by 12 in Andhra Pradesh and nine in Bihar. Some of the PVTGs such as Bonda, Dongria Kondh and Kutia Kondh live in high mountainous altitude and connecting their habitations with all-weather road infrastructure and health and educational institutes, would be a challenge for the respective governments.

Tribal women walk to their villages 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, who live in around 31,000 villages of India’s 18 States and one Union Territory. The announcement was made during the presentation of the Union Budget for 2022-23.

Ms. Sitharaman said that the Union government was putting forward an expenditure outlay of ₹15,000 crore, making this amount available over the next three years for the implementation of this mission. 

“This will saturate PVTG families and habitations with basic facilities such as safe housing, clean drinking water and sanitation, improved access to education, health and nutrition, road and telecom connectivity, and sustainable livelihood opportunities,” the Finance Minister said, adding that the amount being set aside for this will be spent under the Development Action Plan for the Scheduled Tribes. 

The detailed Budget statement for FY 2023-24 showed that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has been allocated a total of Rs 12,461.88 crore, out of which the Ministry’s scheme for the Development of PVTGs, has been allocated ₹256.14 crore. 

Senior officials in the Tribal Affairs ministry told The Hindu that its own scheme for the development of PVTGs, is just a small component of the PM-PVTG Mission. “But like the FM said, the goals are to build roads, telecom connectivity, water and sanitation. The monies for these efforts will go into the Scheduled Tribe Component (STC) of these respective ministries from where it will be allocated for the development of these groups,” he explained. 

Among the ministries that are expected to be roped in to implement the PM-PVTG Mission are the Rural Development Ministry, through which housing component and road connectivity will be implemented; the Water Resources Ministry, under whose Jal Jeevan Mission clean drinking water connections will be taken care of; the Education Ministry, which will take care of building schools and hostels; and the Health Ministry, which will look at filling gaps in healthcare for PVTGs. 

In addition to this, the Women and Child Development Ministry is also going to be roped in to get Anganwadi workers on ground to work towards sensitisation of PVTGs and ensuring they are able to sign up for government benefits. 

One senior official of the Tribal Affairs Ministry said, “In most of these 31,000 villages, the need for infrastructure development is the most urgent.”

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ Development Scheme for PVTGs, running since 2008, has already been providing for livelihood, employment opportunities, education, health, provision of safe drinking water, land distribution, land development, social security, housing and habitat, connectivity (road and telecommunication), supply of electricity, irrigation, urban development, etc.

However, the expenditure reports show that spending under this scheme has declined significantly in the last five years since 2018-19, when ₹250 crore was spent on it. The following year, it dropped to ₹249.99 crore, dipping further to Rs 140 crore in 2020-21, rising slightly to ₹160 crore in 2021-22 and then going back down to ₹124.79 crore in 2022-23. 

Ministry officials said that the reason for this dip in spending was initially the Covid-19 pandemic, “but more so because the money we were sanctioning to states were not being spent properly, lying in their treasuries”.

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