The Centre is gearing to introduce a tribal policy that has been gathering dust for five years, hoping the move will win the tribals over from the Maoists.
The draft of the National Tribal Policy, which proposes land rights for Adivasis and aims to bring their human development indices on a par with the rest of the country by 2020, will be placed before the cabinet this month, tribal ministry officials said.
The policy’s move to correct the “alienation of land” that it identifies as the main reason for the tribals’ estrangement, however, will take time. It will need current land laws to be amended in Parliament, and then in individual states, officials said.
Developed in 2004 by the NDA government, the National Tribal Policy — the first comprehensive policy document drawn up for the country’s 9 crore tribals — had been in cold storage because of opposition from mining and industry lobbies.
The home ministry under Shivraj Patil too feared that handing over forestland to every tribal family could lead to Maoists securing safe havens in many areas.
The draft of the policy was then sent to a group of ministers (GoM), which cleared it in 2008. Since then it lay with the ministry till its revival now, at a time there has been much debate on the relative stress to be given to either “prong” of the Centre’s approach to the Maoist problem: development and the use of force.
The policy acknowledges that passage of land from tribals to non-tribals has led to a deep sense of alienation among the tribals. “This has been manifesting itself in the form of tribal unrest,’’ it says.
The policy, which has set a deadline of 2020 for the restoration of all alienated land to tribals, looks to allocate at least one hectare of land to each landless tribal family. To achieve this, it asks for amendments to state anti-alienation land laws, the Indian Registration Act and the establishment of fast-track courts to settle disputes involving tribal land.
All tribal land must be separately classified with “survey numbers” for each plot, and all government land registrars must have a list of these numbers to prevent the sale of these plots to non-tribals.
The policy suggests legislation to ensure the least displacement of tribals for projects, exploration of all alternatives to displacement, and appropriate compensation if displacement is necessary.
Building of infrastructure in forests, such as roads, electricity lines and check dams, can be done only after consultation with tribal residents of the area. To stop misuse of Adivasi ration cards, it moots a separate public distribution system for them.
The policy asks the government to ensure an annual 3 per cent literacy growth rate among tribals, 100 per cent school enrolment of their children, and a reduction in dropout rates.