Gandhinagar, Sep 6 (IANS) Gujarat has introduced a new administrative arrangement to oversee development schemes for the tribal communities living outside the state’s traditional tribal areas, with Class-I officers of the Tribal Development Department being given direct responsibility in four non-tribal districts.
Under the Mukhyamantri Adimjuth Sarvangi Utkarsh Yojana, Assistant Commissioners of the department have been appointed as Member Secretaries of district-level committees in Ahmedabad, Surendranagar, Gir Somnath and Junagadh from the financial year 2026-27.
The move is aimed at providing a more focused administrative mechanism for Padhar and Siddi families living in scattered settlements in these districts.
The Assistant Commissioner (Class-I), Tribal Development, Ahmedabad will serve as Member Secretary for Ahmedabad and Surendranagar, while the Assistant Commissioner (Class-I), Tribal Development, Rajkot will hold the corresponding responsibility for Gir Somnath and Junagadh.
The arrangement replaces the earlier system under which Deputy District Development Officers of the respective District Panchayats handled these responsibilities as an additional charge.
The government said the earlier arrangement posed an administrative gap because dedicated Project Administrator offices under the Tribal Sub-Plan are available in traditional tribal areas, but a similar focused structure was not in place for primitive tribal communities residing in non-tribal districts.
The new system is intended to establish clearer responsibility for planning, administrative approval, monitoring and implementation of development works.
The change also follows the reorganisation of Junagadh district and the creation of Gir Somnath.
Siddi community families are spread across both districts, prompting the government to establish a separate district-level committee for Junagadh.
The new committee will have its own chairman and members and will oversee development works according to local requirements.
Under the revised arrangement, Class-I Assistant Commissioners will be responsible for administrative approval, monitoring and reporting of works that have received in-principle approval under the scheme.
At the implementation level, the Class-II offices at Bagodara and Talala will undertake local planning, technical approvals and site inspections, besides obtaining Completion Certificates and Utilisation Certificates.
The Bagodara Tribal Development Officer’s office will cater to Padhar community villages in Ahmedabad and Surendranagar, while the Talala office will facilitate ground-level implementation in areas inhabited by the Siddi community.
This division of responsibilities is intended to establish coordination between policy-level decisions and field-level execution.
The government said no similar restructuring was required in the traditional tribal districts, where Project Administrators and other Class-I and senior officers already coordinate tribal development programmes.
The latest arrangement is therefore specifically focused on the four non-tribal districts where Padhar and Siddi communities have been living outside the conventional tribal administrative framework.
The revised system will cover areas including education, housing, healthcare, employment and economic empowerment, with the government expecting the clearer chain of responsibility to improve the implementation and verification of welfare and development works for eligible families.
The Gujarat Tribal Development Department is the state’s nodal department for tribal development programmes.
The state government has also made a provision of Rs 125 crore under the ‘Mukhyamantri Adimjuth and Halpati Sarvangi Utkarsh Yojana’ in the 2026 budget, indicating that the scheme covers broader development interventions for these communities.
– IANS
mys/mr