Tribal News – Welfare measures for the upliftment of De-notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes
National Commission for De-notified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic tribes has taken steps for betterment of the tribes.
There are 1500 Nomadic / Semi-Nomadic Tribes and around 150 Denotified Tribes, which make about 11 Crore of India’s population. Traditionally the tribes wander and therefore could not integrate into Indian society at large. These tribes also don’t have livelihood means as common Indian peoples. As mentioned above, some members of these tribes are still involved in a crime like poaching,deforestation etc, which makes the problem more complicated.
The constitution of India identifies only scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backwards. It does not make any special provision for the denotified tribes by large. Some of this denotified and nomadic tribes got status of SCs in some states while others got status of STs. But many of them are actually neither SCs nor STs. In 2005, the Government of India established the National Commission for De-notified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic Tribes (NCDNT) to study various developmental aspects of these Tribes as citizen of India.
The Commission made several recommendations, enumerated as follows:
- Reservations as available to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should be extended to denotified, nomadic or semi-nomadic tribe categories.
- Extension of Prevention of Atrocities Act to them. The Act currently applies to only SCs and STs. Government should get a “tent to tent” survey done within the next six months and also a community-wise census so as to gather specific data about 1,500 nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes and 150 denotified tribes.
- Initiation of a special housing scheme to ensure that families are provided with “small pucca houses” in the next five years. Provide permanent shelter by helping them settle down as villages.
- The Government should be facilitating the settlement of such tribes as villages by acquiring land for the purpose. A Minimum Land Holding Act should be put in place to guarantee land to these tribes in case they want to settle down and engage in agriculture.
- Suitable training should be provided to these tribals to develop their existing skills and develop livelihood options.
Welfare measures for the upliftment of De-notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes pic.twitter.com/1tJAeeiUAk
— MIB India (@MIB_India) July 1, 2016