“Today, we are reaching 75 PVTGs [Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups] of the country who have been deprived of even basic amenities so far. All previous governments did was count them and classify them. I don’t want to just add up numbers. I want to bring people together,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday as he launched the ₹24,000-crore PM-PVTG Development Mission and a Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra focused on government scheme saturation to the last mile in tribal districts.
In addition to launching these schemes, the Prime Minister released the 15th instalment of the PM-Kisan payout to farmers, and dedicated a host of projects worth over ₹7,000 crore to the nation, including a campus of IIM in Ranchi, and projects in the coal, railways, roads, petroleum and natural gas sectors in Jharkhand.
Mr. Modi’s remarks while celebrating the birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda in his birthplace in Jharkhand came hours before election campaigning came to a close for the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, where nearly 31% of the country’s tribal population and large numbers of farmers reside but also where the Model Code of Conduct is in place.
