PIB TrackerVP links tribal welfare schemes to science and tradition
The Vice President opens a DST–NECTAR conference on lifting tribal lives through science while preserving language, faith and culture.
What happened
- Vice President Shri C. P. Radhakrishnan inaugurated a conference titled "Transformation of Tribal Lives through Science and Technological Interventions – Preserving Language, Faith and Culture" at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
- The event was organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) with the North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach (NECTAR) and ITITI Doon Sanskriti School, Dehradun.
- He framed the effort within Viksit Bharat @ 2047, with the guiding idea "Vikas Bhi, Virasat Bhi" — development together with heritage — arguing that science should raise tribal livelihoods without erasing tribal identity.
- He said India has roughly 1.4 lakh tribal villages and that tribal communities form nearly 9 per cent of the population, holding traditional knowledge that supports biodiversity and sustainable use of forest resources.
- He paid tribute to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for establishing the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, and noted his own support, as a public figure, for the creation of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand.
- He spotlighted two flagship tribal programmes — PM-JANMAN and the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan — and congratulated ITITI Doon Sanskriti School on its Silver Jubilee, noting it has given free quality schooling to more than 2,000 tribal students.
- Dignitaries present included the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, the Deputy Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, and the Secretary, DST.
Background & context
This was a ceremonial address, but it pulled together the entire architecture of India's tribal-development effort — the kind of map UPSC tests through "which scheme does what" and "match the programme to its ministry" questions. The thread running through it is the dual mandate captured in "Vikas Bhi, Virasat Bhi": deliver roads, water and schools to the most isolated communities while protecting their languages, faith systems and ecological knowledge.
The institutional anchor is the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, carved out in 1999 from the then Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, to act as the single nodal ministry for the welfare and development of Scheduled Tribes. Around it sit a family of constitutional and statutory protections — the Fifth and Sixth Schedules, the provisions of Articles 342 (notification of Scheduled Tribes), 244 and 275(1) (grants-in-aid to tribal areas), and laws such as the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and PESA, 1996 — which together define who is a tribal community and what rights attach to tribal land and forests. The two programmes the Vice President named are the current delivery vehicles riding on that base.
The science angle is supplied by DST and NECTAR. NECTAR is an autonomous society under DST, headquartered in Shillong, set up to take appropriate technologies to the North-East and other remote regions — for example geospatial mapping, telemedicine, bamboo and natural-fibre technology, and disaster support. Pairing a tribal-welfare conference with a technology body signals the intended pivot: moving tribal schemes from pure entitlement transfer toward technology-enabled delivery (mapping un-surveyed habitations, planning last-mile roads, and documenting traditional knowledge).
For Prelims
- PM-JANMAN: Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan — launched in November 2023 (announced around Janjatiya Gaurav Divas, 15 November), the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda.
- PM-JANMAN target group: the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) — the most marginalised sub-set among Scheduled Tribes, identified by pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, stagnant or declining population and economic backwardness; 75 PVTGs are recognised across India.
- PM-JANMAN scope (from the address): over 2,400 roads spanning nearly 7,300 km and more than 160 bridges sanctioned, alongside saturation of basic services such as housing, drinking water, electricity, mobile connectivity and health.
- PM-JANMAN delivery model: a convergence mission across multiple ministries — the Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal ministry, but roads, housing, water, power, health and education are delivered by their respective line ministries on a saturation basis in PVTG habitations.
- Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan: a wider tribal-village development mission covering over 63,000 tribal villages, focused on clean water, housing, education, healthcare and sustainable livelihoods; "Dharti Aaba" ("Father of the Earth") is the honorific for Birsa Munda.
- Ministry of Tribal Affairs: nodal ministry for Scheduled Tribes; created in 1999 under the Vajpayee government by bifurcating the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
- Demography (per the VP's address): tribal communities ≈ 9% of India's population, spread across roughly 1.4 lakh villages.
- Organisers: Department of Science and Technology (DST) with NECTAR (North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach), an autonomous body under DST based at Shillong.
- Venue: Bharat Mandapam, the convention complex at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
The tribal-development scheme family (the full set)
- PM-JANMAN — saturation of basic services in PVTG habitations (roads, housing, water, power, health).
- Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan — village-development mission across 63,000+ tribal villages.
- Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) — quality residential schooling for ST students in tribal-majority blocks.
- Pradhan Mantri Adi Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAAGY) — integrated "model village" development of villages with significant tribal population.
- Forest Rights Act, 2006 and PESA, 1996 — the rights-and-self-governance backbone for forest dwellers and tribal gram sabhas.
- TRIFED and the Minimum Support Price for Minor Forest Produce / Van Dhan Vikas Kendras — market access and value-addition for tribal forest produce.
- National Fellowship and Scholarship for Higher Education of ST students — pre-matric, post-matric and overseas support.
Carrying this set lets you survive "how many of the following are tribal-welfare schemes" and "match the scheme to its target group" formats. The single most common confusion the examiner exploits is PM-JANMAN (PVTGs only) versus the broader village schemes — keep that boundary sharp.
Why it matters
The problem the address speaks to is a familiar development gap: PVTG habitations and remote tribal villages are often un-surveyed, off the road network and outside the reach of routine government delivery, so blanket schemes pass them by. PM-JANMAN and the Dharti Aaba Abhiyan are designed as saturation missions — they aim to cover every habitation in scope with a fixed bundle of basic services, rather than leave coverage to demand-driven uptake that the most isolated communities cannot generate. The road-and-bridge numbers (2,400+ roads, ~7,300 km, 160+ bridges) matter because physical access is the binding constraint for everything else — a school or health sub-centre is only usable if a road reaches it.
The deeper significance is the framing of development as compatible with cultural preservation rather than opposed to it. Tribal communities are repositories of biodiversity knowledge and sustainable forest-use practices; the "Vikas Bhi, Virasat Bhi" framing argues that delivering modern services need not dissolve language, faith and ecological knowledge. For governance, the conference signals an attempt to fold science and technology (mapping, connectivity, telemedicine, traditional-knowledge documentation) into welfare delivery, which is the contemporary direction of tribal-development policy.