Bhopal. The Central Government has taken a big step towards the overall development of tribal communities and improving their standard of living. In this sequence, ‘Dharti Aba Janjati Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan’ has been started from 2 October 2024. The objective of this campaign is to create equal opportunities for the tribal population in various states of the country including Madhya Pradesh, development of socio-economic level, improvement of infrastructure and concrete progress in the field of health, education and livelihood.
Tribal Affairs, Public Asset Management and Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Minister Dr. Kunwar Vijay Shah said that 11 thousand 377 tribal villages located in 267 development blocks of 51 districts of the state will get the benefit of this campaign. 18 lakh 58 thousand families of 43 tribal communities reside here, whose total population of 93 lakh 23 thousand will benefit from this campaign. He told that the Central and State Government together are making coordinated efforts to connect these tribal villages with the mainstream of development.
Major goals of the campaign
Skill development, entrepreneurship promotion and self-employment opportunities will be provided in the campaign to improve the living standards of all tribal families. All eligible tribal families will be provided with concrete houses and basic services like roads, water, electricity will be expanded in their villages. As many Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) will be established to ensure better access to health services. Similarly, efforts will be made to start as many Tribal Multipurpose Marketing Centers (TMMC) as possible in tribal areas, so that tribal families can better market their own art, culture, painting, forest produce collection, honey, kodo-kutki, jowar-millet, mahua products, natural treatment knowledge and skills from herbs and the income of the tribes can be increased in their own villages. This will also prevent the tribes from migrating.
25 types of civil services/facilities will be provided to the tribal communities in the campaign, which will be operated by 18 line ministries/departments. These ministries will do development work in tribal areas for five financial years (2024-25 to 2028-29) from their budget amount under the Departmental Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes (DAPST).
The Central Government’s Rural Development, Jal Shakti, Electricity, Health and Family Welfare, Women and Child Development, Education, Skill Development, Agriculture, Telecommunications and Tribal Affairs Ministries / Departments will be prominently involved in this campaign.
Madhya Pradesh has made big preparations for the campaign
Madhya Pradesh has made rapid preparations to get maximum benefit of this campaign. As soon as the outline of the campaign was prepared in the month of September, the state government has sent work proposals worth Rs 1226 crore to the Central Government. With this amount, employment opportunities will be expanded in tribal areas through infrastructure development, health facilities, road access to every village and skill development training.
Principal Secretary, Tribal Affairs Department, Dr. E. Ramesh Kumar said that the state government is making special efforts to establish maximum number of mobile medical units and tribal multipurpose marketing centers in tribal areas under this campaign.
Special services will be provided to tribal communities by 18 ministries and departments of the central government. The Rural Development Ministry will connect villages to main roads under the PM Awas Yojana (Rural) and PM Rural Road Scheme. The Ministry of Jal Shakti will supply pure drinking water to eligible villages through Jal Jeevan Mission, while the Ministry of Energy will work to provide electricity to unelectrified villages and settlements.
This campaign is part of the overall development efforts of the Central Government, in which a plan has been made to connect tribal communities to the social and economic mainstream on priority basis. Through this, concrete work will be done for the overall development of the tribal population in the next five years.
