Bhubaneswar: After a gap of three years, the Tribes Advisory Council met under the leadership of chief minister Naveen Patnaik here on Thursday.
The council is supposed to meet every six months, but the last time it had met was in 2016.
On March 31, the Assembly had witnessed a series of adjournments after chaos broke out over the irregular convening of meetings of the council, which is a statutory body.
Leader of the Opposition Narasingha Mishra had demanded an apology from the government for the irregular conduct of council meetings and an assurance that henceforth it would be convened at regular intervals.
The 20-member council is constituted under Schedule V of the Constitution. It has 15 tribal members nominated by the Assembly. The council had been formed to discuss welfare measures for the tribal community of the state and advise the state government accordingly.
The council assumes significance as Odisha has 22.85 per cent tribal population and has 62 tribes, including 13 vulnerable primitive tribes.
Presiding over the council meeting on Thursday, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said: "My government is committed to providing economic development, enhanced livelihood opportunities, education and skill development that shall lead to true development of our tribal development. In order to achieve these goals, my government has been taking many sustained interventions."
"We shall continue in our efforts to ensure that every tribal child gets the best possible education which shall prepare them to face the challenges of life," he said.
He added that since 2014-15 tribal students from Odisha studying in national-level institutions were provided full assistance to take care of their educational expenses.
The chief minister said that special development councils had been constituted in nine tribal-dominated districts. They have been empowered to take decisions to preserve and promote tribal culture, sports and other development needs.
Naveen listed out the measures initiated by his government, including distribution of 4.15 lakh individual rights covering an area of 6.14 lakh acres.
He also said that his government had a budget outlay of Rs 795 crore for the development of the tribal population across the state. The schemes benefit around 62,000 tribal households.
