CM Naveen Writes Letter To Union Minister Arjun Munda For Urgent Consideration of 160 Proposals For Inclusion In The ST List Of Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has written a letter to Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda for consideration of the more than 160 pending proposals regarding inclusion of communities recommended by the State Government in the ST list of Odisha.

In the letter, Naveen has said “Since 1978 onwards, Government of Odisha has recommended more than 160 Communities of the State to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India for their inclusion in the ST list of the State with approval of Tribes Advisory Council. Among these some are new entries. Some others are sub tribes/subsets , synonyms and phonetic variations of the existing ST communities residing in different parts of the State who are being deprived of the benefits availed by STs though they have the same tribal characteristics as their respective notified STs.”

“I am given to understand that a Task Force under Ministry of Tribal Affairs had recommended 9 proposals from Odisha as priority cases for inclusion in the ST list of the State in the year 2014 , but the same is yet to be notified in the Presidential Order. Because of the delay in their inclusion in the ST list, all these 160 plus communities of the State are becoming victims of historical injustice. I would therefore request you to kindly look into this long pending matter and expedite the scheduling of these left out communities to deliver social justice to them in accordance with the provisions of the Constitutions of India.”

This shall go a long way in helping these deprived communities by giving them their much needed recognition as ST and ensure social justice. I would like to bring the above matter for your kind perusal and urge for urgent action addressing the longstanding pending matter and do justice to the communities who are waiting for decades to get their due grievances redressed, Naveen wrote in the letter.