Kerala marks golden jubilee of State Scheduled Tribes Development department

The government will always stand by the tribal populations, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.

He was speaking after performing the State-level inauguration of the golden jubilee of the Scheduled Tribes Development department at Nishagandhi auditorium on the Kanakakkunnu Palace compound on Saturday.

The Chief Minister said a separate department was formed for the welfare of tribal communities in the State 50 years ago, on July 1, 1975. Since then, the department had taken up a number of initiatives. “Hope the jubilee will help examine how many of these initiatives were successful, how many failed to realise their objectives, and which new should be taken up in these changing times,” the Chief Minister said.

In Kerala, tribespeople comprised 1.45% of the total population. The State government earmarked 2.83% of the annual Plan outlay in the Budget for their welfare and development. In contrast, tribal communities formed 8.06% of total population of the country. However, the Union government earmarked 3.08% of the budget outlay for them, he said.

He pointed out that tribal communities could live in the State without discrimination or attacks in the name of caste. However, this was not the situation in other States.

Projects

Since 2016-17, the allocation for the State’s projects for Scheduled Tribe projects came to ₹5,752 crore. Of that, ₹4,733 crore had been utilised. An amount of ₹697 crore had been earmarked for tribal communities in this year’s budget, Mr. Vijayan pointed out.

He also spoke of projects implemented for the tribal communities in the area of education and land allocation. Steps were being taken to prevent dropouts and improve the functioning of model residential schools and pre-and-post matric hostels for them. A total of 8,680 acres of land had been distributed to 9,162 landless ST families in the past nine years of the Left Democratic Front government, the Chief Minister said.

The department’s golden jubilee coincided with International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. The theme of this year’s day was ‘Indigenous Peoples and AI: Defending Rights, Shaping Futures.’

This was an apt theme in the time of modern technology such as AI and machine learning. Mankind has benefited a lot from them. However, their irresponsible use was creating many difficulties.

The United Nations, he said, had pointed out that AI content that spread misconceptions about indigenous peoples was being created. Some of it was being used to harm their land and resources, he said.

There were 48 crore indigenous people in 90 countries, according to figures. That was less than 6% of the world population. However, indigenous people comprised 15% of the poor in the world. Indigenous peoples spoke 7,000 languages and followed 5,000 different cultures. Against this backdrop, they should become visible and projects prepared for them, Mr. Vijayan said.

The Chief Minister also inaugurated the Smart Padhanamuri project of the Scheduled Tribes Development department.

Announcement of various projects for the tribal communities was also held.

Minister for Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes O.R. Kelu presided over the function. V.K. Prasanth, MLA, who was the chairman of the welcome committee, welcomed the gathering.