NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Tribal Affairs is not playing a proactive role monitoring and implementing the Scheduled Tribe component of different ministries, a Parliamentary standing committee report has observed.
The ministry should take up the matter with the Department of Personnel and Training for expediting the procedure to provide requisite manpower for the monitoring of the Scheduled Tribe component, it said.
Gram panchayats should be the first body to identify the actual needs of the tribal communities, said the report.
The committee expressed its disappointment with the ministry’s response that they would send letters to state governments to assess the gap at gram panchayat level in terms of delivery of goods and services in the major scheduled areas for development.
“The reply of the Ministry does not indicate whether these letters had the desired impact on gram panchayats through their respective state governments,” said the report.
The panel recommended that gram sabhas should be actively involved in the planning process for proper utilisation of scheduled tribe component or tribal sub-plan funds.
The ministry should come up with innovative ideas for the state governments to involve ground-level bodies, it added.
The ministry should advise the state governments to strengthen their tribal welfare department by providing them infrastructure like manpower, financial resources, technical assistance in order to work more effectively for the welfare of tribals, said the parliamentary panel after it was informed that state governments are facing difficulties for effective implementation of tribal sub-plan.
There were more problems in areas affected by Left Wing Extremism, it said.