House panel pulls up line ministries for ‘slow, tardy’ progress in execution of flagship schemes for tribal villages

A Departmentally-related Standing Committee (DRSC) examining the Demand for Grants for Tribal Affairs Ministry pulled up the government on Wednesday (March 11, 2026) for the “slow and tardy” progress of line ministries in administering flagship multi-ministry programmes for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups and Scheduled Tribe communities across the country.

The programmes include saturation campaigns for PM-JANMAN and the ‘Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan’ (DAJGUA) schemes.

The House panel went on to say that this “directly points to deep mismanagement in the execution of the scheme”.

The DRSC on Social Justice and Empowerment, chaired by BJP MP P.C. Mohan, on Wednesday (March 11, 2026), tabled its report on the Tribal Affairs ministry. In this report, the Committee noted that for both these scheme-saturation programmes, there has been a trend of allocations being reduced in the revised estimate stage.

Commenting on the progress of the PM-JANMAN scheme, the Committee said, “There is slow and tardy progress in execution of works by the several Ministries as the work done by the Ministries like, M/o Rural Development, M/o Education and M/o Jal Shakti, which are lagging far behind the target.”

The PM-JANMAN is meant to target Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups within the Scheduled Tribes and is spread across nine line ministries with 11 interventions in areas of health, education, nutrition, road and connectivity, construction of Multi-purpose Centers and Anganwadis, installation of solar panels, electrification and sanitation.

A comparison of targets set and progress achieved showed that the Ministry of Rural Development had completed construction of 2.6 lakh of 4.7 lakh pucca homes sanctioned, and built 1,883 km of connecting roads out of the sanctioned 7,317 km. The data submitted to the panel further showed that the Ministry of Education had completed only 10 of the 500 sanctioned hostels, with 296 having started work. Further, the Ministry of Jal Sahkti had been able to connect 8391 Villages to a piped water supply against over 18,000 villages being sanctioned for this.

Tribal Affairs Ministry clears speedier sanctioning of homes under PM-JANMAN package for vulnerable tribes

Further, the Ministry of Jal Shakti had been able to connect 8391 Villages to a piped water supply against over 18,000 villages being sanctioned for this.

For the DAJGUA scheme, modelled after the PM-JANMAN, similar observations were made by the House panel. It said Ministries of Rural Development, Jal Shakti, and New and Renewable Energy are “yet to start work”, and “several Ministries are yet to complete tasks assigned for completion” by March this year.

The panel said, “This directly points to the deep mismanagement in the execution of the scheme, the Committee are, therefore of the view that the Ministry should take capacity building measures and provide technical support to implementing agencies, including local bodies and field-level officials so that the momentum picks up.”