Allot land, provide jobs and schools to bring back tribals that fled due to Maoist violence: NCST to Chhattisgarh

The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes has asked the Chhattisgarh government to allot land for agriculture and housing, as well as employment and health coverage, to Scheduled Tribe families that had to flee the State around 2005, amidst escalating conflict between Maoist forces and security personnel at the time.

The NCST said, “Without such strategy, no person will be willing to return to the State,” while calling for the Union Home Affairs and Tribal Affairs Ministries to “frame a dedicated policy/plan for migrated ST persons from Chhattisgarh to other States”. The panel has cited the 2018 Bru resettlement plan as an example to draw from.

The panel has advised the Chhattisgarh government to include “developmental activities” in its plans to bring back the displaced families. It said, “The prescribed amount of land (not less than 5 acres), employment for livelihood, PMAY Housing, community certificates, and ration may be ensured as per the feasibility.” It went on to say that “minimum development infrastructure” like primary schools, healthcare centres, anganwadi centres, electricity, and water should be ensured in their habitations.

The NCST has been hearing a representation from Valasa Adhivasula Samaikya, an association representing some of the displaced tribal families currently based in Telangana, since 2022. In the process, the commission has asked each neighbouring State and Chhattisgarh to appoint Nodal Officers to address the issues of the displaced families, and called for detailed surveys to be conducted to estimate how many such families exist and in which States they currently reside.

The NCST has also asked the Union government to formulate a dedicated policy for these displaced families multiple times while dealing with this representation.

In a letter dated September 23, to the Chief Secretaries of Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, and Maharashtra, and the Secretaries of the Union Home Affairs and Tribal Affairs Ministries, the NCST has referred to recommendations it had arrived at in a meeting held earlier this month. It called for action-taken reports from all concerned within about a month on these recommendations, a senior official of the NCST told The Hindu.

In this meeting, held on September 8, the commission asked the Chhattisgarh government to examine the Bru resettlement plan of 2018 to create a similar scheme for displaced tribal families either which addresses their concerns wherever they have now settled and also provides for their rehabilitation to their home districts, according to minutes of the meeting, as suggested by the petitioner association in their initial representations.

The NCST has also noted that the State governments should utilise provisions of the Forest Rights Act to help displaced families continue to reside wherever they were now, if they wished to do so. NCST officials said that the issue of the ST families displaced from Chhattisgarh has been a long-pending one, adding that they often find themselves in conflict with local forest departments.

One official said that most of the displaced tribals had settled in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh from Chhattisgarh. However, even though the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments’ district-level survey reports showed that there were 3,335 such families in their States, an independent survey report prepared by the petitioner association indicated the number of displaced families to be closer to 9,651.

The commission, taking the survey report of the petitioners on record, called for this report to be sent to the governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and also asked the association to prepare similar reports accounting for displaced families who might have moved to Maharashtra or Odisha.