Tribal Welfare

Article 164 of the Constitution provides that there shall be a Minister in charge of Tribal Welfare who may in addition be in charge of the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes or any other work in the States of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.

Consequent upon the creation of the States of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, a sizable portion of the Scheduled Areas of the erstwhile State of Madhya Pradesh stands transferred to Chhattisgarh and the entire Scheduled Areas of the former Bihar State stand transferred to the newly formed Jharkhand State and the Scheduled Areas. Further, as per census figures of 2001, the percentage of the Scheduled Tribes population to total population in the four States are as follows:—

            Name of the State                                          Percentage of the Scheduled Tribes population to total

(i)                  Bihar                                                0.9

(ii)                Jharkhand                                26.3

(iii)                Chhattisgarh                              31.8

(iv)               Madhya Pradesh                                   20.3

As there are no Scheduled Areas in Bihar now and the fraction of population of the Scheduled Tribes is very small, it is proposed to exclude Bihar from the purview of the said proviso and also proposed to extend the provisions of clause (1) of Article 164 to the newly formed States of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.