Centre mulling more autonomy to TRIs, offer PhDs

The government is mulling over giving more autonomy to Tribal Research Institutes so they can offer PhD degrees and recruit experts while carrying out higher-level research work in tribal studies.
"There is a plan to give TRIs more autonomy in academic and financial matters so that they can recruit domain experts for research work and have adequate physical infrastructure," a senior Tribal Ministry official said.
The ministry also intends to set up a national-level apex body to coordinate activities of TRIs across the country to train manpower, share best practices and disseminate information.
"Also, it was suggested that one TRI in each region of the country will be selected to promote them as top research centres and to coordinate the work of TRIs in the region.

"Research done by TRIs will be also subjected to peer review to ascertain its quality. Reports of TRIs will be put up in public domain," the official said.
Meanwhile, the National Training Resource Centre (NTRC), Orissa, has been designated as nodal institute to coordinate activities of TRIs, work as body of knowledge and research, support evidence-based policy, planning and legislations, capacity building and disseminate information, among others.

According to the official, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for a greater role for TRIs in making policies for tribals.
Union Tribal Minister Jual Oram had written to several Chief Ministers, noting that TRIs, which were constituted for research and documentation of socio-cultural and liguistic aspects of tribal life, have become weak over the years.

"Posts are not being filled up. While funds are released by the Union government of India for the TRIs, their release is delayed due to numerous factors," he said.
He had said that sometimes when a project is approved by the Centre, it needs approval of state government "which appears redundant because the project has been sanctioned in consultation with the state governments".