Report of the State Seminar on Tribal Welfare

Abstract

A three day state seminar focusing on the theme Tribal welfare has been conducted by the Tribal Cultural Research and Training Institute, Andhra Pradesh. The main objective of the institute and the seminar is to get a hold on the present scientific points of tribal life and culture. It also heeded in getting academicians, social scientists, anthropologists, administrators and social workers on to one platform to endow awareness about the development programs such as tribal health, socio-economic life, education and administration. Considering these objectives, four sessions were organized with focal themes: Tribal economy and welfare work, Tribal education and cultural research, Panchayat Raj and co-operative in tribal welfare and Administration in Tribal Areas. The first session headed by President Sri V. Raghavi gave complete knowledge about land problems such as maintenance of land records, the tariff on land revenue, ownerships for tribals, method of cultivation and the rights for safeguarding the lands. And also a special spotlight on forest administration, afforestation, soil conservation and industrial setup for economic development. Prof.N.K. Bose chief for the 2nd session centered mainly in tribal education and research, where, many aspects such as mode of education i.e., whom to be educated, what language is to be confined for learning, whether it should be their dialects, organization of schools, inter alliance and role to be played by the pupil, teacher and parents for the success of primary education, financial deficient for not continuing to higher education and lastly awareness to bring improvement in cultural research crucial for the welfare development programmes. Post afternoon on the second day of the seminar, Dr. Sachchidanada detailed about the role of Panchayat raj its rules and regulation and to what extent the statutory panchayats and traditional tribal council can co-ordinate the work, as to how should it be made understandable to the local races as the literacy rate among the Andhra Pradesh tribals is merely 4%. They also keened on the co-operative societies their role in lending money, various schemes and rates for consumption purposes. On the last day, the session subject administration in tribal area by Sri L.N.Gupta as chief speaker delineated on the self-contained life of tribal communities which is confined to their geography. Focus on the power, regulation acts, rights and assisting agents to overcome problems so as to get them educated to counteract the undesirable elements who take undue advantage of their ignorance and illiteracy.