Implementation of various acts relating to tribal welfare enabling them assert their rights, constituting the tribal advisory council, improving road connectivity, education and health and better implementation of NREGS are among the issues that found echo at a seminar on the comprehensive development of Girijans on Sunday.
The Constitutional right enshrined in Clause 5 of the Fifth Schedule that all laws should be amended with a positive bias towards Girijans still had to be implemented, former Union Energy Secretary E.A.S. Sarma said.
Speaking at the seminar organised by A.P. Girijana Sangham, he said instead of strengthening Panchyat Extension in Scheduled Areas Act, the UPA and present NDA governments were trying to dilute the consent of grama sabha. The stand of political parties on bauxite mining in the Agency area was shifting depending on their being in power or not. According to the original R&R conditions displaced Girijans should be given land in the irrigated land of the Polavaram, Mr. Sarma said. In the implementation of NREGS the rate in hilly areas was not viable, he pointed out.
Though the fourth clause of the Fifth Schedule mandated formation of tribal advisory council, it was not done even one-and-a-half years after the new government was formed, he said.
Former director of Tribal Cultural Research and Training Institute V.S.V.K. Sastry said 51 per cent of Girijan land in the North Coastal and Godavari districts was under control of non-Girijans according to Koneru Ranga Rao committee. The issue of bauxite mining was an example of Girijans not being consulted let alone their consent being taken.
‘No administration’
Former MP Midiam Babu Rao said in the resolution moved that in the execution of Polvaram project 2.5 lakh Girijans were affected.
In the mandals merged with Andhra Pradesh there was no administration. Autonomous Girijan districts were not formed and even when 100 per cent were Girijans such villages were not included in the Fifth Schedule.
Former MP D.V.G. Sankara Rao criticised the interests of Girijans being brokered to the advantage of corporate sector. Malaria continues to take its toll. With the half the money spent on Godavari puskharams, two medical colleges could have been started in tribal areas, he felt.
The stand of political parties on bauxite mining in the Agency area is shifting depending on their being in power or not
E.A.S. Sarma
Former Union Energy Secretary
