Since the beginning of the Planning process, efforts have been made to ensure that the tribal people were included in the growth process. However, the strategy changed with each Five-Year Plan as new lessons were learnt from various developmental efforts. The first Five Year Plan emphasized the provision of additional financial resources through a community development approach to address the problems of tribal people rather than evolving a clear-cut tribal development strategy. Towards the end of the Plan (1954), 43 Special Multipurpose Tribal Development Projects (MTDPs) were created. These MTDPs could not fully serve the interest of the tribal people since the schemes were numerous and of a general nature. This approach continued during the second Five Year Plan. In the third Plan, a different strategy for tribal development was evolved by converting the Community Development Blocks, where the concentration of tribal population was 66 % and above, into Tribal Development Blocks (TDBs). By the end of the fourth Five Year Plan, the number of Tribal Development Blocks in the country rose to 504. The strategy of development through Tribal Development Blocks had its limitations as well, as it failed to address the cause of the tribal population of the country living outside the Tribal Development Blocks, which comprised more than 60% of the total tribal population. During the 5th Five Year Plan period, the exercise of identification of tribal majority blocks was undertaken. These were later constituted into 194 ITDAs/ITDPs in the country.
The present Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) strategy was initially developed by an Expert Committee set up by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare in 1972 under the Chairmanship of Prof. S.C. Dube for the rapid socio-economic development of tribal people and was adopted for the first time in the Fifth Five Year Plan. The TSP strategy, with some modifications, continues till this day and the salient features with respect to TSP for States, are given below:
Funding of Tribal Development Programmes under TSP
Funds for tribal development under TSP are sourced from:
TSP Components of States and UTs
The Planning Commission had issued guidelines for the States and UTs to earmark funds for TSP to be placed under a separate Budget Head Code 796 from total State/ UT Plan outlay. As per guidelines issued by the Planning Commission, the Tribal Sub Plan funds are to be non-divertible and non-lapsable. The guidelines also provide that the Tribal Welfare Department will be nodal Departments for the formulation and implementation of the Tribal Sub Plan in the States. Though the States are expected to provide under the TSP funds which are at least equal to the percentage of the tribal population to the total population in the State, and though the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Planning Commission have repeatedly laid stress on earmarking of adequate resources, some of the States while preparing the Annual Plan for even 2013-14 have continued to allocate fewer than proportional resources to TSP.
TSP Components of Central Ministries/Departments
The TSP strategy is expected to be followed in the Central Ministries/Departments also so that an adequate flow of funds in the Central Ministries/ Departments is ensured. Ministries/ Departments had earlier been reporting difficulty in implementing TSP citing indivisibility of projects, projects being applicable to all communities, including SCs/STs, etc. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs taking this into account had approached Planning Commission for devising a different strategy for Central Ministries on TSP. The Planning Commission constituted a Task Force in June, 2010 under the chairmanship of
Dr. Narendra Jadhav, Member, Planning Commission. It recommended a classification of specific list of Ministries/Departments according to their obligations regarding earmarking of Plan outlays for TSP.
Special Central Assistance (SCA) to the Tribal Sub- Plan:
This is a major programme administered by the Ministry under which, grant is provided to the State Governments based on annual allocation made by the Planning Commission. This is treated as an additive to the State Plan, for areas where State Plan provisions are not normally forthcoming to bring about economic development to tribals. The programme was launched during 1974-75 and till the end of the IX Five Year Plan, the SCA to TSP was meant for filling up critical gaps in the family-based income- generating activities of TSP. From the Tenth Five Year Plan period, the objective and scope of SCA to TSP, was expanded to cover employment-cum-income generation activities and infrastructure incidental thereto. Besides family-based activities, other activities run by the Self-Help Groups (SHGs)/ Community are also to be taken up. The ultimate objective of extending SCA to TSP is to boost the demand-based income-generation programmes and thus raise the economic and social status of tribals. The guidelines for implementation by the States were revised in May 2003, and were further modified in January 2008. Recently in March 2014, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has issued operational guidelines for formulation, implementation and monitoring of Tribal Sub-Plan and grants under Article 275(1) which has brought out certain substantive changes in the thrust of these Special Area Programmes, as also some procedural changes.
SCA is provided to 22 Tribal Sub-Plan States including the Northeastern States of Assam, Manipur, Sikkim, and Tripura and two Union Territories. Since 2003-04 funds meant for UTs are being provided in the budget of Ministry of Home Affairs and therefore, Ministry of Tribal Affairs is not concerned with the administration of funds in the UTs. Funds under SCA to TSP are released for economic development in the following areas and for the following population: -
The Ministry provides 100% grant-in-aid to State Governments from the SCA funds made available to the Ministry for the purpose annually by the Planning Commission. Funds to the level of Rs. 15.00 Lakhs per village under the program for Development of Forest Villages were also provided as an extension of the Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub- Plan (SCA to TSP). Government has decided that an additional funding upto Rs. 15.00 Lakh each would be provided to all those forest villages which have availed the first phase funding during the Xth Plan.
Grants under the First Proviso to article 275(1) of the Constitution:
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs provide grants to 22 Tribal Sub-Plan and 4 tribal majority States under the First Proviso to article 275(1) of the Constitution to meet the cost of such projects for tribal development as may be undertaken by the State Governments for the promoting the welfare of the
Scheduled Tribes in the State and for raising the level of administration of the Scheduled Areas therein to that of the rest of the State. Since 1997-98, it has been decided to utilize a part of the funds under Article 275(1) of the Constitution for setting up 100 Model Residential Schools (named as Eklavya Vidyalaya) from class 6th to 10th in States & UTs for tribal students. For this purpose, Rs.150.00 crores were earmarked during the 9th Five Year Plan out of the funds available under Article 275(1) of the Constitution. The objective of setting up of the Eklavya Vidyalayas is to provide quality education to the tribal students. 164 Eklavya Vidyalayas were sanctioned to 22 States up to 31/03/2014 since the beginning and 120 Schools are reported to be functional.
A fixed grant under the second proviso to Article 275(1) of the Constitution (Non- Plan) is given to the Government of Assam in respect of the administration of tribal areas in the hill districts of North Cachar and Karbi Anglong.
Centrally Sponsored Schemes:
Central Sector Schemes under which 100% Grant is given to States and UTs