Economic Development

SCA is released for the economic development of the following :-

• Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) area contiguous large area in which ST population is 50% or more out of a total population.
• Modified Area Development Approach (MADA) pockets identification of pockets containing 50% or more of ST population out of a total population of 10000 and above
• Clusters-identified pockets containing 50% or more ST Population out of a total population of 5000.
• Primitive Tribes-identified isolated communities among the STs charactarised by the low rate of population, pre-agricultural level of technology and extremely low levels of literacy (so far 75 Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) have been identified.
• Displaced tribal population outside (a),(b),(c) and (d) above.
• Assistance for Margin Money Loan Programme (MMLP) for Tribal Finance and Development Corporations in the States to implement MMLP.
• Special Projects-Specific Project proposals are also received and sanctioned.

So far as the procedural aspect is concerned, the guidelines are as follows :-

• SCA should be allocated by the State Governments/UT Administrations to the ITDPs and no part of SCA should be released to any department at the State level, Transfer of funds to implementing departments/agencies if required should be done by the ITDP. to the corresponding officer of the implementing agency/line.
• ITDP should prepare 5 year/Annual Plans depending upon the local parameters. Activities of, non-plan nature should not be catered to from SCA.
• To fulfill the constitutional provisions, the schemes on which SCA is proposed to the utilized, should be specified in the annual TSPs of the States/UTs and administrative approval of the Government of India be obtained Financial sanctions however need not be obtained on a case by case basis.
• SCA is released to the States normally in three installments and the entire amounts expected to be made available by the end of third quarter. The releases would be subject to the performance by the State Governments and the utilization of previously released funds.