A parliamentary panel has taken exception to the Government’s failure to allocate funds under the Development of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) scheme during 2022-23 in states like Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand which have significant tribal populations.
The parliamentary panel report on Social Justice and Empowerment for demand for grants by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in its report tabled in Lok Sabha questioned how planned developmental projects could proceed effectively in the absence of financial resources, particularly in states with large tribal populations.
It highlighted that the budgetary allocation for the PVTG scheme had been substantially reduced during the 2020-21 to 2022-23 period while no funds were released to states such as Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, despite the large tribal populations in these regions.
The committee also flagged systemic inefficiencies, including delayed submission of utilization certificates by states and procedural bottlenecks that have hampered progress in previous years.
