Telangana giving top priority to tribal development: Satyavathi Rathod

Telangana Tribal Festival was organised on a grand scale across the State, wherein schemes and programmes for the welfare of tribals were highlighted

Hyderabad: The “Telangana Tribal Festival’ was organised on a grand scale across the State on Saturday as part of the State’s Formation Day Celebrations, wherein schemes and programmes introduced by the BRS government led by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao for the welfare of tribals were highlighted.

A special programme was organised at Ravindra Bharathi to mark the occasion, in which Tribal Minister Satyavathi Rathod explained about various schemes brought for the welfare of the tribals in the State.

---

Stating that after the formation of the new State, the BRS government attached top-most priority for the development of the Scheduled Tribe population in the State, she said the BRS government had taken up a slew of initiatives for the upliftment of tribals on all fronts. Right from allocating a special fund for comprehensive tribal development, gram panchayat status was given to tribal hamlets, while infrastructure was provided in hamlets apart from free electricity for ST households and for agriculture, she said.

The government has been consistently working towards finding permanent solutions to the problems faced by Girijans and bringing sustainable development to the tribal communities in the newly formed districts. The Telangana government has spent approximately Rs. 53,000 crore for the development and welfare of Girijans since the formation of the State.

The State government has specifically focused on improving the living standards of backward communities and implementing various programs to ensure their socio-economic stability.

The Chief Minister has taken special initiatives to address the significant challenges faced by Girijan families and has implemented transformative schemes to provide them with financial and social stability.

The State government has upgraded about 3,146 tandas and gudems to gram panchayats for better administration and to bring them into the mainstream of development. Following the upgradation of tandas into GPs, thousands of adivasi, lambada and tribal youth won local body elections and became sarpanches and ward members.

The government has also earmarked adequate funds for the upliftment of the tribal community which paved the way for continuous growth of the panchayats . So far under the Scheduled Tribes Special Development Fund (STSDF), the government spent Rs.47,282 crore for the welfare of STs.

The government sanctioned Rs.20 lakh for the construction of each Gram Panchayat building and gave permission to fill up 1,650 posts in the Tribal Welfare department.