The lynching of Madhu, an Attapady tribal youth, for allegedly stealing a morsel of food has forced the State government to revisit the tribal welfare schemes implemented by various departments.
A video conferencing programme convened by the Chief Secretary to take stock of the implementation of various tribal schemes, decided to utilise the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to reach out to the tribal population.
In the short term, the Rural Development Department will prepare an action plan for taking up various works in the next three months under the MGNREGS. In the long term, the Rural Development Department had issued directions to all field officers of the MGNREGS to take urgent steps to identify tribal families and issue them job cards.
The meeting decided to prepare an action plan for taking up development work in land owned by tribal families or in tribal hamlets to be implemented during the 2018-19 financial year. It was reported at the meeting that there were wage arrears to be paid to the tribal people and on this basis, the field officers have been directed to take the necessary steps to clear the arrears.
It was decided to provide wages to tribal families for taking up cultivation in their own land. The MGNREGS officials have been asked to provide them job days in convergence with the Agriculture Department for cultivation in their own land in accordance with the approved package of practice.
The meeting also decided to take up construction of tanks, including silpaulin-lined tanks, to meet their drinking water requirements and construction of roads to tribal hamlets. This would be done in convergence with the Forest Department. According to sources in the Rural Development Department, steps will be taken to ensure that all tribal families are given job cards. For tribal women, skill training will be given in masonry work, building blocks construction, etc under the auspices of the Kudumbasree and they will be utilised for construction of houses under the LIFE Mission scheme.
The efforts to push the work under the MGNREGS could run into trouble if panchayats in the tribal areas have failed to upload the completion reports of all works undertaken up to 2016-17 on the MGNREGS portal and have failed to complete geo-tagging of commissioned work. The labour budgets of such erring panchayats would not get approval of the Central government, source said. The figures of actual achievements in the tribal areas would be revealed only when this process was over, they said.
