Question : Schedule Tribes Category

(a) whether there are tribes that the Government has found in the recent past who have not been falling in the category as in the schedule of the Tribal Affairs Ministry;
(b) whether all the deep forest areas, mountain areas ranging from the Sahyadris, North East Regions, the Himalayas been surveyed for this purpose; and
(c) whether the Government proposes to further engage adventure-loving individuals for the above purpose to get all the people/tribes in the mainstream and if so, the details thereof?

(a) to (c): The Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal Ministry for specification of a community as Scheduled Tribes under Article 342 of the Constitution of India.

Article 366 (25) of the Constitution of India refers to Scheduled Tribes as those communities who are scheduled in accordance with Article 342 of the Constitution.


Article 342 prescribes the procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of Scheduled Tribes. In this regard, the Government of India on 15-6-1999 (further amended on 25-6-2002), has laid down the modalities for determining the claims for inclusion in, exclusion from and other modifications in the Orders specifying lists for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. According to these modalities, only those proposals which have been recommended and justified by the concerned State Government and concurred with by the Registrar General of India (RGI) and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) are to be considered for amendment of legislation. All actions are taken as per these approved modalities.

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