Maharashtra government will soon open a war room in the State secretariat to ensure effective monitoring and implementation of as many as 90 projects related to the tribal areas.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced that this war room would be set up under the leadership of Tribal Development Minister Nitin Raut, who has also been directed to put together a task force for monitoring progress of tribal-area issues of malnutrition and implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, the Chief Minister said.
“The war room will ensure remote tribal areas are able to have full access to State schemes and even the last home in a tribal region gets connected to the government. The task force then must ensure every single penny allotted to eradicating problems like malnutrition is fully utilised under a set time line,” Mr. Thackeray said.
The Chief Minister issued these directives during a meeting of the tribal department on Thursday. Senior officials said Mr. Raut later announced that a nation-wide gathering of tribal experts and leaders would be held in the State to discuss the potential of various schemes in tribal areas.
On the lines of a high power committee for the Scheduled Caste (SC), a committee would also be set up for the Scheduled Tribes (ST), said Mr. Raut. Maharashtra is second on the list of States with maximum tribal population, which is mostly concentrated in the western hilly districts of Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Nashik, Palghar, Thane and eestern districts of Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Bhandara, Gondia.
The Statea government is running 29 integrated tribal development projects (ITDP), and 43 modified area development approach (MADA) schemes in these regions, besides another 24 mini-MADA schemes.
Maharashtra’s annual tribal sub plan (TSP) is earmarked upwards of ₹25,000 crore, which covers nearly 320 schemes at the district level, officials present in the meeting said.
Mr Thackeray said the government has no intention of discontinuing any schemes launched by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government in these areas. “However, the Chief Minister also pointed out that when he visited some tribal regions, he did see a need to change how the schemes were being implemented. The CM will tour tribal regions once again after the war room is in place,” said a senior official of the department.
