NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Tribal Affairs will hold a review meeting with the states on Wednesday on the steps needed to take precautionary measures for particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) across states amid the pandemic.
Recently, the members of PVTGs in the Andaman and Nicobar islands tested positive for COVID-19. The Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Sentinelese Onge, and Shompen are recognized as PVTGs there.
In a recent report submitted to the ministry, the A&N administration said it had stepped up measures for the safety of PVTGs.
“There will be participation from most states. Most of the PVTG members who tested positive are doing fine. We are in constant touch with the A&N administration. Everything is under control now. The safety measures will be discussed. There will also be discussions on the implementation of other schemes among the PVTGs and the bottlenecks that have come up in the implementation,” said Arjun Munda, Union Minister of Tribal Affairs.
Among the other agenda of the meeting are the implementation of the Forest Rights Act and the hurdles that states are currently facing while implementing it.
“Implementation of FRA in states would also be discussed at the meeting. The progress of FRA will be reviewed,” said Munda.
The other agenda of the meeting include reviewing the status of recognition of rights and disposal of pending and rejected claims, consent of gram sabhas in case of land diversions, and recognizing the role of gram sabhas, monitoring the progress reports, according to a source.
The ministry will also discuss how to raise awareness generation among the states on the issue of FRA.
It had earlier told states that despite FRA being passed more than a decade ago, the implementation of its provisions remains poor. It held capacity building and awareness-level programmes in states in order to sensitise officials on the importance of effective implementation of FRA.