PM Janjatiya Vikas Mission to give jobs to tribals in remote, maoist areas soon

New Delhi: The Centre will soon launch the Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Vikas Mission to provide employment opportunities to tribals in remote, Maoist-infested areas. PMJVM will be an amalgam of a number of existing schemes for a more targeted approach to generate employment for tribals in villages, based on the recommendations of a group of ministers on employment generation. It would focus on 100 most backward tribal-dominated districts.

The Centre will use unutilised funds earmarked for providing minimum support price for minor forest produce, district mineral fund and grant-in-aid under Article 275 (1) of Constitution for tribal areas to implement a number of initiatives. They would include acquiring minor forest produce at different village markets, setting up value-added centres by involving self-help groups in villages, setting up of food parks to market and sell the tribal products at district and state levels.

A senior official involved with the project, who did not wish to be identified, told ET: “After Covid-19 outbreak we have realised that labourers have returned to their homes and are unwilling to come back. They would need a means of livelihood. They are turning to collection of minor forest produce and traditional crafts and would also want to scale up. This is why the government plans to turn them into entrepreneurs, rather than taking the infrastructure development approach.” There is also a growing fear that unless tribal youth are provided employment, they could be swayed by Maoists.


PMJVM would involve the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India and the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Under PMJVM, every tribal-dominated district would have its own action plan for employment generation. The first districts where the mission is likely to be unveiled include Dantewada, Bastar and Raigarh. The government would set up food processing plants called Trifood plants.

With the catch line “Mera Van, Mera Dhan, Mera Udyam” (My Forest, My Treasure, My Enterprise), the Mission would involve setting up of 100 Trifood parks and 3,000 Van Dhan centres across India in tribal-dominated districts. The government would give money to every cluster of tribal villages under MSME’s Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries to open a value addition centre, which would in turn supply to the food park.