Govt to set up agency to take care of urban tribals

An agency will be set up in urban areas to take care of the needs of particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) living in cities and help them overcome cultural barriers, problems of landlessness, trafficking, safety and other aspects.
The agency will also facilitate skill upgradation and issuance of caste certificates, according to the revised guidelines of Scheme of Development of Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) recently approved by the government.
Under the guidelines, the scheme will cover 75 identified PVTGs and enable each state to focus on areas like livelihood, employment opportunities and economic development of the groups through agriculture, skilling or vocational training, education, land distribution and land development, social security, housing, irrigation, sports including traditional and tribal games and sports for their comprehensive socio-economic development.

The project authorities will tap resources for above activities from other schemes of the Tribal Affairs Ministry, other Centrally sponsored schemes of other Ministries and schemes of state governments, particularly the tribal sub-plan (TSP) component of the state plan to ensure convergence of funds and manpower under the scheme.
"The funds under this scheme would be made available only for important activities for the survival, protection and development of PVTGs," a senior official from Tribal Affairs Ministry said.
All the 18 state governments and the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar islands will prepare long term Conservation-cum-Development (CCD) Plan for each PVTG of their state on the basis of the requirement assessed through baseline and other specific surveys.

"The activities should be outcome-driven and should focus on making a visible impact such as improvement in human development indices and infrastructure through parameters which can be verified," says the revised guidelines.