Govt committed to development of tribals: Naveen

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Bhubaneswar: Development of tribal areas, welfare of tribal people and preservation of their cultural heritage has always been close to my heart, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said here Thursday.
Addressing a meeting of the Tribes Advisory Council at the Secretariat here, Naveen said Odisha is unique as it has 62 scheduled tribes (STs) including 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) who constitute 22.85 per cent of the population.
“My government is committed to providing economic empowerment, enhanced livelihood opportunities, education and skill development which will lead to development of the tribal population. In order to achieve these goals, my government is taking sustained interventions,” he said.
On the role of education in social development, he said the government has launched a number of initiatives which have started yielding results. All ST students from Odisha studying in national institutions are provided 100 per cent assistance to meet their entire cost of education apart from scholarships from 2014-15 onwards. The CM appealed to members of the panel to continue their efforts to ensure that every tribal child gets the best possible education.
The government has constituted Special Development Councils in nine tribal districts for the development of tribal areas and tribes, said the chief minister. “The councils are empowered to take decisions to preserve their culture and on developmental needs,” the CM added.
He also pointed out that Odisha continued to be the best performer in the country in implementation of Forest Rights Act (FRA) with the distribution of 4.15 lakh individual rights covering 6.14 lakh acres and 6,336 community rights over an area of 3.28 lakh acres.
The government has also successfully implemented the Odisha Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Programme (OTELP) which is in operation since 2004. This successful model has been upgraded as ‘OTELP Plus’, covering an additional 2,695 villages benefitting 1.42 lakh households, the CM said.
The government has launched a scheme titled ‘Odisha PVTGs Empowerment and Livelihood Improvement Programme’ (OPELIP) for livelihood empowerment of PVTGs, which is being implemented from 2016-17 with an outlay of `795 crore. This will benefit around 62,000 households, the CM said.
Odisha has stood first in the country in the distribution of title deeds to tribal communities by distributing 4.15 lakh titles. Collectors have been instructed to complete demarcation of the remaining land before 2019, said SC & ST Development Minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi.
The functioning of the nine special development councils was assessed at the meeting which focussed on the sale of tribal land for infrastructure development and rehabilitating affected people, Majhi added.