Context: Recently, the Ministry of Trbal Affairs has published the success story of Shahapur’s Katkari Tribe regarding successful implementation of Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana.
About Katkari Tribe

• The Katkari is an Scheduled Tribe mostly belonging to the state of Maharashtra.
• They are bilingual, speaking the Katkari language, a dialect of the Marathi-Konkani languages, with each other; they speak Marathi with the Marathi speakers, who are a majority in the populace where they live.
• In Maharashtra, the Katkari has been designated a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), along with two other groups included in this sub-category: the Madia Gond and the Kolam.
• In the case of the Katkari this vulnerability derives from their history as a nomadic, forest-dwelling people listed by the British Raj under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, a stigma that continues to this day.
• Katkari is one of the 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), as per the classification by Ministry of Home Affairs.?

What are PVTGs?

• There are certain tribal communities who have declining or stagnant population, low level of literacy, pre-agricultural level of technology and are economically backward.
• They generally inhabit remote localities having poor infrastructure and administrative support.
• These groups are among the most vulnerable section of our society as they are few in numbers, have not attained any significant level of social and economic development.
• 75 such groups have been identified and categorized as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs).
• They reside 18 States and Union Territory of A&N Islands.
• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs implements the Scheme of “Development of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)” exclusively for them.