Revision of Scheduled Tribes List

The Union Cabinet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the addition of four tribes to the list of Scheduled Tribes.

Newly added tribes:

• Himachal Pradesh: Hatti tribe 
• Tamil Nadu: Narikoravan and Kurivikkaran hill tribes 
• Chhattisgarh: Binjhia (They were listed as ST in Jharkhand and Odisha but not in Chhattisgarh)
• Karnataka: Kadu Kuruba community 

Process:

• The process to include tribes in the ST list begins with the recommendation from the respective State governments.
• The request is made to the Tribal Affairs Ministry, which reviews and sends them to the Registrar General of India for approval.
• This is followed by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes’ approval before the list is sent to the Cabinet for a final decision.

Scheduled Tribes in India

• The term 'Scheduled Tribes' first appeared in the Constitution of India. Article 366 (25) defined scheduled tribes as "such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution".
• Article 342, which is reproduced below, prescribes procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of scheduled tribes.
• The tribal population of the country, as per 2011 census, is 10.43 crore, constituting 8.6% of the total population.
  • 89.97% of them live in rural areas and 10.03% in urban areas.
  • The decadal population growth of the tribal’s from Census 2001 to 2011 has been 23.66% against the 17.69% of the entire population.
  • The sex ratio for the overall population is 940 females per 1000 males and that of Scheduled Tribes 990 females per thousand males.
• Broadly the STs inhabit two distinct geographical area – the Central India and the North- Eastern Area.
  • More than half of the Scheduled Tribe population is concentrated in Central India, i.e., Madhya Pradesh (14.69%), Chhattisgarh (7.5%), Jharkhand (8.29%), Andhra Pradesh (5.7%), Maharashtra (10.08%), Orissa (9.2%), Gujarat (8.55%) and Rajasthan (8.86%).
  • The other distinct area is the North East (Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh).
• More than two-third of the ST population is concentrated only in the seven States of the country, viz. Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
• There is no ST population in 3 States (Delhi NCR, Punjab and Haryana) and 2 UTs (Puducherry and Chandigarh), as no Scheduled Tribe is notified.