The story so far: On December 6, the Tribal Affairs Ministry told the Rajya Sabha that the population of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) was not in decline, citing information provided by the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (ORGI). This was in variance with the State-wise Census data provided by the Ministry to a Parliamentary panel last year showing that the numbers of these tribal groups fell almost 40% in at least nine States and Union Territories in the first decade of this century.
Who are the PVTGs?
Initially known as Primitive Tribal Groups, the PVTGs are defined by the government as tribal communities that show either a declining or stagnant population, use of pre-agrarian technology, economic backwardness, low literacy etc. They are found to be living in some of the remotest and most inaccessible areas in the country. There are 75 such communities which are spread over 18 States and Union Territories, according to government figures. A book, The Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups in India: Privileges and Predicaments, published by the Anthropological Survey of India in 2016 and edited by K.K. Misra and others, says the highest number of PVTGs are found in Odisha (15), followed by Andhra Pradesh (12), Bihar and Jharkhand (9), Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (7), Tamil Nadu (6) and Kerala and Gujarat (5 each). The rest, the writers said, are scattered in Maharashtra and West Bengal (3 each), Karnataka and Uttarakhand (2 each), and one each in Rajasthan, Tripura and Manipur. All the four tribal groups in the Andaman, and one in Nicobar Islands, are recognised as PVTGs. The last available Census that counted all 75 communities was from 2001, which put their total number around 27.6 lakh.
