A series of initiatives were announced by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs here today, which included the Tribal Health and Nutrition Portal ‘Swasthya’ and e-newsletter on health and nutrition ALEKH; opening of National Overseas Portal and National Tribal Fellowship Portal. Present during the occasion were Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Shri Arjun Munda, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Smt. Renuka Singh Saruta, Secretary (Coordination), Cabinet Secretariat Shri V.P. Joy and officers of Ministry of Tribal Affairs led by Shri Deepak Khandekar, Secretary, M/o Tribal Affairs. Shri Navaljit Kapoor, Joint Secretary, MoTA gave presentation of Performance Dashboard of Ministry where various outcome indicators of 11 schemes and Initiatives of the Ministry are reflected.

Shri Arjun Munda inaugurated the e-portal on tribal health and nutrition named ‘Swasthya’, a first of its kind e-portal, providing all health and nutrition related information of the tribal population of India in a single platform. Swasthya will also curate innovative practices, research briefs, case studies, and best practices collected from different parts of India to facilitate the exchange of evidence, expertise and experiences. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has recognized Piramal Swasthya as the Centre of Excellence for Knowledge Management (CoE for KM) for Health and Nutrition. The CoE will constantly engage with the Ministry and provide inputs to drive evidence-based policy and decision-making pertaining to health and nutrition of the tribal population of India. 

During the event, Shri Arjun Munda stated, “The availability of healthcare for all has been one of the foremost priorities of our Prime Minister. Although the public health standards have improved over time, the differences between tribal and non-tribal populations remain. We, at the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, are committed to bridge this gap. I am glad that the ‘Swasthya’ portal has come out very well. The launch of the portal is a first step towards the much bigger goal of serving the tribal population of our nation. With support from all the stakeholders, I hope and expect to grow stronger and serve better towards fulfilment of visions of our Prime Minister ‘Healthy India.”

He further informed about the initiatives of the Ministry in partnership with Facebook though the ‘Going Online as Leaders (GOAL)’ Programme. Through the GOAL Programme, the Ministry aims to mentor 5000 Tribal Youth across India and enable them to become village-level digital young leaders for their communities. He stated “We are working very hard to make this programme a big success and I have every hope that the initiative will realize its objectives and result in empowering tribal youth to become leading resource in their area of influence and help tribal youth and enable them to gain leadership skills, identify problems in their society, find solutions and use their knowledge for society’s socio-economic status.” GOAL program has received huge response from all stakeholders. The road map of the program including the distribution of mobile and launch of the program on 5th September 2020, on Teachers Day was also announced.

Commenting on the DBT Portal, Shri Arjun Munda stated that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has been recently awarded the 66th SKOCH Gold Award for “Empowerment of Tribals through IT enabled Scholarship Schemes” under guidance of DBT Mission. It was informed that the national evaluation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes focused on social inclusion by KPMG has recognised the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Portal of Ministry of Tribal Affairs as a best practice in e-governance; leading to greater transparency, accountability and radical improvement in service delivery to Scheduled Tribe students. On the opening of online application for Fellowship and Overseas Scholarship, he added, “National Fellowship and Overseas Scholarship Portal will bring greater transparency and easy information to the ST students”. He talked about extraordinary efforts of Ministry towards realizing the dreams of Digital India envisioned by Prime Minister”.

Speaking on the Performance Dashboard of M/o Tribal Affairs the Minister added “The dashboard is part of Digital India Initiative to work towards empowering Scheduled Tribes and will bring efficiency and transparency in the system. The performance of Tribal Ministry and 37 other Ministries who are required to spend allocated amount of their budget for tribal welfare under STC Component as per mechanism framed by NITI Aayog can be seen on various parameters on dashboard. The dashboard will also be one-point link to all e-initiatives of the Ministry” The Dashboard has been developed by Centre of Excellence of Data Analytics (CEDA), organization under National Informatics Centre (NIC) with domain name (http://dashboard.tribal.gov.in).

Smt Renuka Singh Saruta released ‘ALEKH’, a quarterly e-newsletter. Emphasizing on the commitment of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to improve the health and wellbeing of the tribal communities, she stated, “I am deeply grateful to the individuals and organizations who tirelessly work on the ground for the betterment of the community especially in providing health services to the ST people during COVID time. I hope this newsletter will enable us to showcase the work of all our stakeholders and encourage us to learn from each other’s successes and failures. I am glad to mention that through the GOAL programme, MoTA and Facebook are jointly reaching the ST youth, and specially ST girls, through digital platform for developing entrepreneurial skills among them. I firmly believe that this will empower them to become champions in the social and economic sector.”