The Union government is now looking to design a survey that can gauge the Human Development Index (HDI) specifically for about 28 lakh people of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) living in over 22,000 villages across the country, Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said on Wednesday (June 14) in New Delhi.
Calling it a first-ever attempt, Mr. Munda said, “We will collect information about the changes in their lives and document it - and simply put, make a database from it at the village-level. We basically want to draw up an HDI for primitive tribal groups. This will also be able to quantify how government policies are changing their lives.”
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in this year’s Budget speech announced a ₹15,000-crore expenditure outlay for the Pradhan Mantri Primitive Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PM-PVTG) Development Mission, to be spent over the next three years. The programme envisions connecting all 22,544 PVTG villages to basic government services like communications, electricity, public education, healthcare, water supply, and connectivity.
