Scheme for economic empowerment of denotified, nomadic, semi-nomadic (seed) tribes.

• The Union Social Justice Ministry received 402 applications online from across the country for benefits under the Scheme for Economic Empowerment of Denotified, Nomadic, Semi-nomadic (SEED) Tribes.
• The Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the Scheme for Economic Empowerment of DNTs (SEED) in 2022 at Dr. Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi for the welfare of De-notified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic Communities.
• More than 10 crore Indians from 1,400 communities belong to these groups, show the latest estimates available with the government.
• The scheme aims to provide free competitive exam coaching to students, health insurance and financial assistance for housing and uplift clusters of these communities through livelihood initiatives.
• The Ministry has been allocated ₹200 crore for this scheme to be spent over five financial years from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• At the time of the launch, the Ministry announced that the scheme would be implemented through an online portal that would issue a unique ID to each applicant to apply and track the status of the application online.

The De-notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes

• These are communities that are the most vulnerable and deprived.
• DNTs are communities that were ‘notified’ as being ‘born criminals’ during the British regime under a series of laws starting with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.

• • These Acts were repealed by the Independent Indian Government in l952, and these communities were “De-Notified”.

• A few of these communities which were listed as de-notified were also nomadic.

• • Nomadic and semi-nomadic communities are defined as those who move from one place to another rather than living in one place all the time.

• Historically, Nomadic Tribes and De-notified Tribes never had access to private land or home ownership.
• While most DNTs are spread across the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST)and Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories, some DNTs are not covered in any of the SC, ST or OBC categories.