Government sets up committee to formulate Tribal bill

New Delhi, Feb 12 (UNI) The Government has set up a 20-member expert committee headed by retired IAS officer S R Shankaran to formulate a draft bill on tribal development.

Talking to newsmen, Ministry of Tribal Affairs Secretary Meena Gupta today said the Ministry is keen on the introduction of a bill in the Parliament, which covers protection of economic, linguistic and cultural development of the Tribals in the country.

The draft bill would be prepared after having due consultations with tribals.

Mrs Gupta said the committee will take three months to prepare the draft bill and another one month to give final touches to this bill before its introduction in the house for approval.

Apart from this, the Ministry has planned to set up a National Institute of Tribal Affairs for undertaking various research programmes for the development of the tribals.

''So far, 18 States have set up Institutes for achieving this objective. But once this National institute comes into effect there will be better coordination and more exchange of information and datas on the tribal issues which would ultimately help the Government in formulating more pragmatic policies for these tribals,'' Mrs Gupta said.

She said the Ministry is expected to present the idea before the Cabinet so that it could come up in the Parliament during the Budget session.

The Secretary revealed the Ministry of Tribal Affairs will be organising a two day seminar-cum workshop on the state secretaries and commissioners in charge of tribal development here tomorrow and that would be followed by a meeting of the State Ministers in Charge of Tribal welfare/Development on February 14.

During these meetings, they would be discussing various ongoing projects for the development of the Tribals along with the presentation on Tribal Sub Plan (TSP), a presentation on scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers keeping in view the Recognition of Forest Rights Act, 2005, Ashram schools and vocational training programmes.

The opening and closing of the meet on tribal issues will be addressed by the Tribal Affairs Minister P R Kyndiah.

She said during 2006-07 the Ministry of Tribal Affairs got a total budgetary support of Rs 1656 crores consisting an amount of Rs 440 crores towards literacy promotion in the tribal areas in the country. This time the Ministry has sought an additional sum of Rs 760 crores towards boosting this literacy programme.

Under this they have submitted a proposal identifying 54 illiterate pockets in 54 tribal districts in the country. These low education level districts have been identified based on a fixed parameters, she added.

UNI