A series of initiatives were announced by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs here today, which included the Tribal Health and Nutrition Portal ‘Swasthya’ and e-newsletter on health and nutrition ALEKH; opening of National Overseas Portal and National Tribal Fellowship Portal.

Present during the occasion were Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Shri Arjun Munda, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Smt. Renuka Singh Saruta, Secretary (Coordination), Cabinet Secretariat Shri V.P. Joy and officers of Ministry of Tribal Affairs led by Shri Deepak Khandekar, Secretary, M/o Tribal Affairs. Shri Navaljit Kapoor, Joint Secretary, MoTA gave presentation of Performance Dashboard of Ministry where various outcome indicators of 11 schemes and Initiatives of the Ministry are reflected.

Shri Arjun Munda inaugurated the e-portal on tribal health and nutrition named ‘Swasthya’, a first of its kind e-portal, providing all health and nutrition related information of the tribal population of India in a single platform. Swasthya will also curate innovative practices, research briefs, case studies, and best practices collected from different parts of India to facilitate the exchange of evidence, expertise and experiences.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has recognized Piramal Swasthya as the Centre of Excellence for Knowledge Management (CoE for KM) for Health and Nutrition. The CoE will constantly engage with the Ministry and provide inputs to drive evidence-based policy and decision-making pertaining to health and nutrition of the tribal population of India. The portal http://swasthya.tribal.gov.in is hosted on NIC cloud.

During the event, Shri Arjun Munda stated, “The availability of healthcare for all has been one of the foremost priorities of our Prime Minister. Although the public health standards have improved over time, the differences between tribal and non-tribal populations remain. We, at the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, are committed to bridge this gap.

I am glad that the ‘Swasthya’ portal has come out very well. The launch of the portal is a first step towards the much bigger goal of serving the tribal population of our nation. With support from all the stakeholders, I hope and expect to grow stronger and serve better towards fulfilment of visions of our Prime Minister ‘Healthy India.”

He further informed about the initiatives of the Ministry in partnership with Facebook though the ‘Going Online as Leaders (GOAL)’ Programme. Through the GOAL Programme, the Ministry aims to mentor 5000 Tribal Youth across India and enable them to become village-level digital young leaders for their communities.

He stated “We are working very hard to make this programme a big success and I have every hope that the initiative will realize its objectives and result in empowering tribal youth to become leading resource in their area of influence and help tribal youth and enable them to gain leadership skills, identify problems in their society, find solutions and use their knowledge for society’s socio-economic status.” GOAL program has received huge response from all stakeholders. The road map of the program including the distribution of mobile and launch of the program on 5th September 2020, on Teachers Day was also announced.

Commenting on the DBT Portal, Shri Arjun Munda stated that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has been recently awarded the 66th SKOCH Gold Award for “Empowerment of Tribals through IT enabled Scholarship Schemes” under guidance of DBT Mission.

It was informed that the national evaluation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes focused on social inclusion by KPMG has recognised the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Portal of Ministry of Tribal Affairs as a best practice in e-governance; leading to greater transparency, accountability and radical improvement in service delivery to Scheduled Tribe students. On the opening of online application for Fellowship and Overseas Scholarship, he added, “National Fellowship and Overseas Scholarship Portal will bring greater transparency and easy information to the ST students”. He talked about extraordinary efforts of Ministry towards realizing the dreams of Digital India envisioned by Prime Minister”.

Speaking on the Performance Dashboard of M/o Tribal Affairs the Minister added “The dashboard is part of Digital India Initiative to work towards empowering Scheduled Tribes and will bring efficiency and transparency in the system. The performance of Tribal Ministry and 37 other Ministries who are required to spend allocated amount of their budget for tribal welfare under STC Component as per mechanism framed by NITI Aayog can be seen on various parameters on dashboard. The dashboard will also be one-point link to all e-initiatives of the Ministry” The Dashboard has been developed by Centre of Excellence of Data Analytics (CEDA), organization under National Informatics Centre (NIC) with domain name (http://dashboard.tribal.gov.in).

Smt Renuka Singh Saruta released ‘ALEKH’, a quarterly e-newsletter. Emphasizing on the commitment of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to improve the health and wellbeing of the tribal communities, she stated, “I am deeply grateful to the individuals and organizations who tirelessly work on the ground for the betterment of the community especially in providing health services to the ST people during COVID time. I hope this newsletter will enable us to showcase the work of all our stakeholders and encourage us to learn from each other’s successes and failures. I am glad to mention that through the GOAL programme, MoTA and Facebook are jointly reaching the ST youth, and specially ST girls, through digital platform for developing entrepreneurial skills among them. I firmly believe that this will empower them to become champions in the social and economic sector.”

In Ladakh, 96 roads of length 699 km and 2 bridges have been completed under PMGSY till July 2020 Posted On: 17 AUG 2020 5:14PM by PIB Delhi

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, is a flagship program of Govt. of India for providing connectivity to unconnected habitations, based on census 2001. In the UTs of J&K and Ladakh, all unconnected habitations of population above 250, are eligible under the program.

In the UT of Jammu & Kashmir, 3,261 roads of length of 19,277 km and 243 bridges have been sanctioned, out of which 1858 roads of length 11,517 km and 84 bridges have been completed. Similarly, in the UT of Ladakh, 142 roads of length of 1207 km and 3 bridges have been sanctioned, out of which 96 roads of length 699 km and 2 bridges have been completed till July 2020.

Works for connecting 2,149 eligible unconnected habitations were sanctioned in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, out of which 1,858 habitations have been connected. In the UT of Ladakh, works for 65 eligible habitations were sanctioned and 64 habitations have been already connected by July 2020.

Project Dolphinfor the conservation and protection of the Dolphins in the rivers and in oceans of the country to be launched soon: Union Environment Minister

Union Environment Welcomes Finance Commission’s move towards rewarding states for Green growth; Finance Commission has increased weightage of forests from 7% to 10% while allocating central tax to be shared with states. Posted On: 17 AUG 2020 6:33PM by PIB Delhi

“Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) is focused on enhancing forest quality and increasing tree cover for maximizing carbon stock.”, said the Union Environment Minister, Shri Prakash Javadekarat the States Forest Minister’s Conference held in New Delhi. Minister of State in the Environment Ministry, Shri Babul Supriyo, other officials in the Ministry, Chief Ministers of the State of Arunachal Pradesh and Goa, Deputy Chief Ministers and 24 Forest Ministers from various States participated in the four-hour long meeting held via video conferencing.

Shri Javadekar addressing the meeting said that, “We have taken many initiatives to bring out transformational changes in our policies and programmes and implement several schemes which includes massive tree plantation, promoting urban forestry through Nagar Van Scheme, Landscape based catchment treatment of 13 major rivers, LiDAR based survey of degraded forest areas for soil moisture conservation projects and launch of National Transit Portal to facilitate smooth movement of Forest produce.”

These efforts are critical to meet our national and international goals under National Forest Policy, Nationally Determined Commitments and restoration of degraded forest land, said Shri Javadekar.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in his independence day speech had announced the launch of Project Lion and Project Dolphin. The Union Environment Minister said that the government will launch a holistic Project Dolphin in a fortnight, for the conservation and protection of the Dolphins in the rivers and in oceans of the country.

Project Dolphin will involve conservation of Dolphins and the aquatic habitat through use of modern technology specially in enumeration and anti-poaching activities. The project will engage the fishermen and other river/ ocean dependent population and will strive for improving the livelihood of the local communities. The conservation of Dolphin will also envisage activities which will also help in the mitigation of pollution in rivers and in the oceans.

The Union Minister also stated that the government is working towards the Project Lion, that will involve conservation of the Asiatic Lion and its landscape in a holistic manner. The Project Lion will entail habitat development, engage modern technologies in Lion management and address the issues of disease in Lion and its associated species through advanced world-class research and veterinary care. The project will also address Human-wildlife conflict and will be inclusive involving local communities living in the vicinity of Lion landscape and will also provide livelihood opportunities.

At the meeting, Shri Javadekar stressed that states should use CAMPA funds exclusively for afforestation and plantation. “I announce that 80% of afforestation fund shall be utilized only for afforestation/plantation and the rest 20% can be used for capacity building etc. The Centre in August 2019 released Rs. 47,436 crores CAMPA funds for afforestation to various states. Ministry is also going to announce implementation of School Nursery Scheme shortly, said the Union Environment Minister during the meeting.

The Nagar Van Scheme which was announced on this World Environment Day for creation of 200 Nagar Van, on forest land by adopting a collaborative approach, involving various agencies like forest and other departments, NGOs, Corporate Bodies, Industries etc, was also discussed at length during the course of the meeting. Initially, the Ministry will be giving grants for fencing and soil moisture works. The primary objective is to create forested area in cities with Municipal Corporation, which will act as lungs of the cities.

School Nursery scheme which aims at involving school students from the young age in nursery and plantation operations was also elaborated and discussed during the course of the four-hour long meeting. The objective of the scheme is to inculcate the spirit of forest and environment in the mind of young students. Scheme guidelines will be shared with the States shortly.

Another important issue highlighted during the meeting by Shri Prakash Javadekar was the study given to ICFRE for river rejuvenation of 13 major rivers which will promote forestry along river, increase ground water recharge and reduce erosion. Similarly, LiDAR technology, an airborne remote sensing method which will assist in identification of the degraded land for construction of soil and water conservation structures and launch of a nationwide National Transit Portalto promote smooth inter-state movement of forest produce,whose pilot was launched recently was also an agenda item of the meeting.

During the meeting the States gave their status of preparedness for implementation of various programmes initiated by Ministry and also conveyed their willingness to associate with all other initiatives of Government of India to promote green cover. States showed enthusiasm and expressed cooperation with MoEF&CC in this endeavour.