Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday virtually participated in the Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas celebrations centred on Gadchiroli in Maharashtra and inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of 246 development projects worth approximately Rs 3,000 crore for tribal communities across the country, ANI reported. The day marks the 151st birth anniversary of tribal freedom fighter Bhagwan Birsa Munda, born in 1875 and popularly known as Dharti Aaba.

Source: ANI via Daily Prabhat

Of the 173 projects inaugurated, 38 are Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) for tribal students and 100 are Multi-Purpose Centres under the Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM-JANMAN), envisaged as hubs for service delivery and community activities. Other inaugurations included the Tribal Research Institute building at Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh and the Ropuiliani Tribal Freedom Fighter Museum at Aizawl in Mizoram, named after the 19th-century Mizo chieftainess who resisted British colonial rule. The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stones of 19 new Eklavya schools, 12 Tribal Multipurpose Marketing Centres to improve market access for tribal producers, and 42 other projects under PM-JANMAN and the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA).

Source: ANI via Daily Prabhat

"Past governments neither understood nor cared" — Modi's address

Addressing tribal community members across the country, Modi sharply criticised previous governments, saying they 'neither understood the tribal communities nor cared about them', Nation Press reported. He cited the colonial-era classification of bamboo as a tree, which criminalised bamboo-cutting by tribal communities, and said the law should have been abolished after independence; his government, he said, ended it and restored full rights over bamboo to tribal communities.

Source: Nation Press

During the programme the Prime Minister interacted with beneficiaries of central schemes. Vajir, a beneficiary from Hathakundi village in Netrang tehsil of Bharuch district in Gujarat, described how schemes including PM-JANMAN had improved his livelihood from bamboo work, while Krishna Nagorao Teka, a PM-JANMAN beneficiary from Yavatmal in Maharashtra, said the scheme had given his family a permanent house, a toilet and other basic amenities after years in which living in their earlier house was very difficult in the rainy season, according to Nation Press.

Source: Nation Press

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who attended the event at Gadchiroli, thanked the Prime Minister for dedicating Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas in 2021 and said Gadchiroli had received the opportunity to host this year's programme, ANI reported. The event marked the culmination of Janjatiya Gaurav Pakhwada, observed across the country from November 1 to 15. Sources: ANI report published by Daily Prabhat, November 15; Nation Press, November 15; IANS, November 15.