Tribal affairs ministry launches e-governance website DBT Tribal to track and fulfill welfare schemes

Arjun Munda, the Union minister for tribal affairs, on Wednesday, launched e-governance initiatives for welfare schemes for scheduled tribes in the form of two digital portals under the aegis of the ministry —  DBT Tribal and NGO Grants Online Application and Tracking System. The move is expected to bring the implementation of welfare schemes for scheduled tribes (STs) under the purview of e-governance, with greater efficiency and transparency.

The ministry of tribal affairs has been facing multiple challenges in its functioning. There is no established mechanism for collecting data from the States or collating it. Sources in the ministry said the States would provide data in different formats and different mechanisms ranging from printouts to various digital formats, making collation cumbersome and prone to errors and even manipulation. Moreover, **till the recent Supreme Court judgement** there was no unique ID for tribal students; the order has helped minors to get their own bank accounts. DBT Tribal is expected to address these anomalies. The portal is also expected to help States share beneficiary data with the tribal affairs ministry through web services. It will send SMS/email notifications to institutions and States as well as the beneficiaries. The portal also has a provision for the states and the nodal department to upload utilisation certificates (of subsidies and other grants) and issue sanctioning orders. Other features include online grievance redressal, and it is integrated with NFS (National Fellowship), NOS (National Overseas Scholarship) and NSP (National Scholarship Portal). The other website,  NGO Grants Online Application and Tracking System, which was developed for implementing schemes of aid to voluntary organisations working for tribal welfare, has been fully revamped and simplified. The system has been automated and the NGOs simply need to follow specified steps to access grants. The launch of the portals was attended by Renuka Singh Saruta, the minister of state (MoS) for tribal affairs, Anusuiya Uikey, vice chairperson, National Commission for Schedule Tribes (NCST), Ramesh Chand Meena, chairperson, the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) and Deepak Khandekar, secretary, minister of tribal affairs. Munda called upon the officials of the ministry to prepare a databank of previous beneficiaries of ministry schemes on a priority basis and stressed on before-time completion of targets. The MoS described the e-governance initiative as a milestone initiative for the scheduled tribe welfare schemes.