“Today, we are reaching 75 PVTGs [Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups] of the country who have been deprived of even basic amenities so far. All previous governments did was count them and classify them. I don’t want to just add up numbers. I want to bring people together,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday as he launched the ₹24,000-crore PM-PVTG Development Mission and a Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra focused on government scheme saturation to the last mile in tribal districts.
In addition to launching these schemes, the Prime Minister released the 15th instalment of the PM-Kisan payout to farmers, and dedicated a host of projects worth over ₹7,000 crore to the nation, including a campus of IIM in Ranchi, and projects in the coal, railways, roads, petroleum and natural gas sectors in Jharkhand.
Mr. Modi’s remarks while celebrating the birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda in his birthplace in Jharkhand came hours before election campaigning came to a close for the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, where nearly 31% of the country’s tribal population and large numbers of farmers reside but also where the Model Code of Conduct is in place.
The PM’s jibe at previous governments prioritising counting populations comes even as the Congress and other Opposition parties have made it a point to drum up the urgency of a countrywide caste census in the last few weeks of poll campaigning, routinely questioning the BJP’s reluctance to discuss it.
The programme in Khunti was attended by Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi, Jharkhand Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan. Before the launch of the schemes, a recorded video address of President Droupadi Murmu was also played, in which she wished all citizens on the occasion of Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas.
In his address on the PM-PVTG mission, the Prime Minister also thanked the President for her special attention and guidance for this project and expressed gratitude for inspiring the implementation of the scheme.
Aspirational districts
While addressing the crowd, Mr. Modi said, “Similarly, previous governments had just counted the 110 most backward districts and classified them as such, leaving the majority tribal populations there to their fate. But we have coined them as aspirational districts and are developing them as models.”
While launching the PM-PVTG mission, which was announced in this year’s Budget speech by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Prime Minister said the programme was directed towards the most backward of the Scheduled Tribes in the country, “who had till now been relegated to their fate by previous governments”.
He said these 75 PVTGs were just like the most backward communities among backward castes and that even after 75 years of Independence, they had no access to basic needs. “They never got pucca homes, generations of these communities have not even seen a school; and this community’s development was never attended to but now the Government of India is reaching them through their special initiatives.”
Mr. Modi also took the opportunity on Wednesday to take a swipe at the Congress’ social justice and secularism plank in a veiled remark, where he said, “For decades, a lot of speeches were made about social justice and secularism. But true secularism will only come when there is no longer any chance for any kind of discrimination against any person. The trust of social justice is only built when everyone gets equal access to all government schemes without any preferential treatment.”
11 key interventions
The scheme is meant to bring 11 key interventions like the PM-Gram Sadak Yojana, PM-Gram Awaas Yojana, Jal Jeevan Mission, etc. by coordinated work of nine ministries to about 22,500 villages across 18 States and union territories, where around 28 lakh PVTG people live.
In addition to this, while flagging off the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, Mr. Modi said the dream of a “developed India” will only be realised if four key pillars of society — women, farmers, youth, and middle class and poor — are strengthened as they have been in the last decade.
Mr. Modi flagged off the Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) vans of the yatra, meant to educate and help people sign up for government schemes, from Khunti district in Jharkhand, even as Governors, Chief Ministers, Union Ministers and Ministers of State flagged off similar IEC vans from 68 tribal-dominated districts across the country.
The yatra is expected to cover 2.55 lakh gram panchayats and 3,600 urban local bodies across all districts by Republic Day next year.
