New Delhi: Continuing his government’s tribal outreach, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday laid foundation stones and inaugurated development projects worth Rs 6,640 crore at a mega event in Bihar’s Jamui to celebrate 150th birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda.
The PM also unveiled a commemorative coin and postal stamp in honour of Munda and launched the year-long celebration—’Janjatiya Gaurav Varsh’, one of BJP’s key poll promises in the 2024 general elections.
Born in 1875 in Jharkhand’s Ulihatu village, Birsa Munda is revered as ‘Bhagwan’ by the tribal communities. The tribal hero organised the ‘Ulgulan’ (revolution) or the Munda rebellion, mobilising tribals against British rule.
The renewed impetus on tribal welfare is seen as a move to woo the tribal segment ahead of the polling in Maharashtra and Jharkhand (second phase) on 20 November.
Comprising about 26 per cent of Jharkhand’s population, the tribals are wooed by all political parties in the eastern state. In Maharashtra, the Scheduled Tribes account for 9.4 percent of the state’s population is tribal.
This is not the first time the Modi government is organising a large-scale event with such fanfare and announcing initiatives and measures for the tribal community with an eye on ahead of polls in the state polls.
In 2023, ahead of the polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana, which have a sizeable tribal population, the NDA government launched the Rs 25,000-crore Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM JANMAN) for 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) from Khunti in Jharkhand.
ThePrint explains the Modi government’s focus on tribals, the schemes and initiatives launched for their welfare and the politics over adivasis.
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Reach out over the years
After coming to power at the Centre for the third time in June, the Modi government announced the Rs 79,000-crore Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA), which was launched in October, for improving socio-economic condition tribal communities in over 63,000 villages. The initiative is aimed at benefiting 5 crore tribal people in 549 districts across India.
As part of the initiative, the PM on Friday launched 30 mobile medical units for providing healthcare facilities in tribal villages and laid the foundation stone for 1.16 lakh houses and 304 hostels for tribal families and students.
“Our government’s focus is on education, income and medicine of the tribal society… Ten years back, the budget for tribal welfare was less than Rs 25,000 crore. Our government has increased the budgetary allocation by five times from Rs 25,000 crore to Rs 1.25 lakh crore in the last 10 years,” Modi told a large crowd at Jamui.
The government is also implementing the Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes (DAPST) as a strategy for the development of Scheduled Tribes and areas having tribal concentration. “The DAPST fund allocation has grown 5.8 times since 2013-14, reaching Rs. 1,24,908 crore in 2024-25,” a government release said Friday.
To address the problem of sickle cell anaemia among the tribal communities, the Modi government launched the National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission in July 2023. The mission is aimed at providing affordable, accessible and quality care to all Sickle Cell patients, reducing the prevalence of disease through awareness, and most importantly screening nearly seven crore people in affected tribal districts.
“A total of 3,85,09,466 people in the 17 identified States have been screened (under the mission),” the Union health ministry informed Parliament in August.
Last year, the Modi government announced the Rs 24,000-crore Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM-JANMAN). Launched by the PM in Jharkhand’s Khunti on Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary last year, the scheme is aimed at providing basic services such as housing, roads, medical facilities etc, to 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) living in remote corners of the country.
In February, the Modi government launched the Venture Capital Fund to support entrepreneurs from the scheduled tribes communities. Announced in the 2022-23 budget, the Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Tribes (VCF-ST) is aimed at providing support to new incubation and startup ideas through concessional finance.
Under the scheme, businesses can seek financial assistance up to Rs 5 crore, according to the guidelines listed on the website of the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the nodal ministry for the scheme.
Politics over tribal welfare
In its second term, the Modi government has been focusing on tribal welfare initiatives, right with the announcement in 2021 to celebrate 15 November, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, as Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas.
While the government has announced several measures for tribal welfare, the Congress slammed PM Modi and his government for “paying lip service” to the cause of adivasis while undermining their rights.
Former Union minister and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh hit out at the Modi government, alleging that the DAJGUA is a “full mockery” of the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
The FRA, which was passed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, was a “revolutionary law” as it transferred power and authority over forests to the gram sabha from the forest department, he said.
“Rather than empower the FRA’s statutory bodies, namely the gram sabha, the sub-divisional committee, the district level committee and the State-level monitoring committee, DAJGUA has created a vast parallel institutional mechanism of FRA cells at the district and sub-divisional levels and arming them with large funds and contractual staff,” Ramesh said in a statement released on ‘X’.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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