Scheme for Economic Empowerment of DNTs

February 16, 2022

Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Dr Virendra Kumar is scheduled to launch the “Scheme for Economic Empowerment of DNTs (SEED)” on February 16, 2022.

Highlights

Scheme will be launched for the welfare of De-notified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic Communities (DNCs) at Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi.

How is this community deprived?

DNTs are the most neglected, marginalized and economically & socially deprived communities.
They have been living a life of destitution for generations.
They have escaped attention of developmental framework and thus are deprived of support unlike SCs and STs.
They never had access to private land or home ownership, historically.
These tribes used forests and grazing lands for residential use and their livelihood.

National Commission for De-Notified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic Tribe

Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment decided to constitute a “National Commission for De-Notified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic Tribes”. It was constituted under the Chairmanship of Bhiku Ramji Idate, for a period of three years. Commission submitted its report in December, 2017. In the report, commission prepared draft lists and details of number of communities.

Constitution of Development & Welfare Board for DNCs

On the basis of recommendations of National Commission, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment constituted “Development and Welfare Board for De-notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Communities (DWBDNCs)” in 2019. Board has been tasked to formulate and implement welfare and development programmes for DNCs.

Outlay of the scheme

Under the scheme, approximately Rs 200 crore will be spent over a period of 5 years, starting from 2021-22 to 2025-26.

Components of the scheme

The Scheme comprises of four components:

To provide coaching of good quality for candidates from these communities, in order to enable them to appear in competitive examinations.
Free coaching for DNT Students has been envisioned for educational empowerment of these communities. This component was added with the objective of providing good coaching quality for DNT candidates for enabling them to appear in competitive examinations or take admission to professional courses viz., medicine, engineering, MBA, etc.
To provide health insurance to these Communities.
To facilitate livelihoods initiative at community level, in a bid to build and strengthen small clusters of DNT/NT/SNT Communities institutions.

Portal to implement the scheme

Scheme will be implemented through a portal, that has been developed by Department of Social Justice & Empowerment. Portal comprises of two modules:

One for registration of applicant with details of his family, income, Aadhar & bank details, occupation, caste certificate, etc.
Second part comprise of scheme component for which applicant wants to seek benefit with his UID.

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