Four tribes of Manipur among 43 fresh scheduled tribes

Imphal, June 09: The Union minister of tribal affairs, Jual Oram has said that the Government has decided to include 140 castes as Scheduled Tribes in the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950. Out of this list 43 additions are fresh, 66 synonymous, one each on account of bifurcation of entries and clubbing of entries, two as a result of change of nomenclature, two on account of verbal correction, one on account of local language and 16 exclusion, a PIB press release said. Oram told pressmen in New Delhi that the fresh list to be notified was worked out and approved by the Union Cabinet recently, out of a total proposal of 971 for inclusion received from the States and Union Territories. The Minister said the Government relied on the criteria based on indications of primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large and backwardness. Explaining the fresh inclusion of tribes, the minister said that two were in Assam followed by four in Arunachal Pradesh, one in Andhra Pradesh, three in Bihar, one in Goa, two in Himachal Pradesh, two in Jharkhand, one in Kamataka, eight in Kerala, one in Mizoram, four in Manipur, two in Sikkim, 10 in Uttar Pradesh and two in West Bengal. The minister clarified that States of Punjab and Haryana and Union Territories of Chandigarh, Delhi and Pondicherry did not have any community specified as Scheduled Tribe. The minister said further that the communities proposed to be listed as Scheduled Tribes would desire benefits admissible to Scheduled Tribes under Article 342 of the Constitution of India and the Order issued there under. Oram said he was happy to announce that the Government was contemplating to bifurcate the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes into two Commissions in order to provide focused attention to the all round development of Scheduled Tribes. He also announced that the Government was also considering to set up a National Institute for Tribal Development to provide dedicated logistic support to the tribal development in the country.