Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The SC & ST Development Department launched a webinar series, “Tribal Dialogues” This webinar will help form a platform where several ideas on diverse perspectives and some best practices will help create a practical and feasible trail for tribal development in Odisha.
On Wednesday, the first webinar was held as “Tribal Dialogues,” where the theme was ‘Revival and Reconstruction of tribal livelihoods-Post COVID-19 response-Challenges, Opportunities and Way ahead”. Jagannath Saraka, Minister of State, ST& SC Development, was the Chief Guest of the inaugural event and Navaljit Kapoor, Joint Secretary, MoTA, who highlighted various schemes and programs of Central Government which is endeavoured at Tribal Development across the country. Ranjana Chopra, Principal Secretary, ST & SC Development Department, talked about the Mission Jeebika initiative of the State Government to increase the income level and living standards of the tribals through various arbitrations in a clustering method.
The livelihood of tribal was transformed economically and socially due to farm-based clusters like pea cluster, Maize cluster, various vegetables cash crop clusters, and poultry cluster. In this program, the beneficiary farmers have shown an increase in farm income. The total area under cultivation with the area under irrigation has also increased because of the fallow Lander under agriculture.
Padmashree Sushree Kamala Pujari, Arabinda Kumar Padhee, Director ICRISAT, Jagadananda, Founder (CYSD), Narendranath Damodaran Executive Director (PRADAN)are some of the eminent panellists. They shared their views on various aspects affecting tribal life and livelihood and realized real-time situation analysis, and articulated action ideas.
Article Written by Dikhya Mohanty
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