The Tribal community is not happy with the Tribal Welfare Minister, Ramesh Tawadkar and his performance for the last three years. The leaders of the community claim that they had expected much from the minister as he was from the same community. Besides, the same government was ruling the center as well as Goa. “It was a proud moment for us when our community MLA and member of UTAA (United Tribal Association Alliance) was given the portfolio of Tribal Welfare Minister in the BJP-led government in Goa, but unfortunately his performance and aggressiveness was lost once he got inducted,” said Prakash S Velip, UTAA President.
Tawadkar, who also holds sports and agriculture portfolios was the convener of the UTAA, the umbrella organization for the tribal population who in the past had a series of protests and hesitation to get their constitutional rights. Tawadkar was also one of the leaders who led the agitation at Balli in 2011 in which two tribal youth died after locals turned violent for damaging their shops and houses.
“We are meeting the tribal people but it is a sorry state of affairs. It is a fact that the tribal people are unhappy with the government,” said Velip. Velip was a former BJP MLA and minister in Manohar Parrikar’s cabinet and had contested the March 2012 assembly election as an independent candidate and lost against a Congress candidate.
He said that many schemes under tribal welfare still remain on paper even after three years of the BJP government. There are 10,040 applications from the ST community before the government for the last couple of years which is sidelined.
“Some of the MLAs have been elected with the support of tribal voters but the returns they are getting for the past three years has been poor. The community will of course take it as a lesson for the future” Velip said.
There is approximately 1.50 lakh tribal population in Goa as per the census. For the financial year of 2014-15, only 21.87% of the budgetary provision funds have been utilized by the department leaving a majority of the funds unutilized. Of the 219.11 core budgetary provision for various tribal schemes, hardly 47.90 crore was utilized in the 2014-15 financial year. The excuse the department is giving is that some of the schemes have not been launched.
Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) in its report for the year 2013-14 pointed out that out of tribal welfare budget of RS. 62.50 crore, only 13.26 crore was spent and the reason listed for not utilization was ‘non implementation/poor response to the welfare schemes’. “We had high hopes from Tawadkar but we are disappointed with his performance. He is not able to give justice to the demands made by the tribal population,” Prakash A Velip, (Junior) another UTAA leader said. It is common knowledge now that the tribal leaders use the tribal population to get elected. The village from where Tawadkar hails and surrounding villages as well are still without proper water supply, health facilities and other basic needs.
