Scheduled Tribes are social groups recognised by the Indian Constitution as specially marked by poverty, powerlessness and social stigma. Article 366 (25) of the Constitution of India defines Scheduled Tribes as "such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution”. The characteristics of these
communities are:
• Primitive Traits
• Geographical isolation
• Distinct culture
• Shy of contact with community at large
• Economically backward

Issues related with them:

• They are considered to be socially and economically disadvantaged.
• They constitute a large proportion of agricultural labourers, casual labourers, plantation labourers, industrial labourers.
• They belong to the poorest strata of the society and have low levels of education, poor health and reduced access to healthcare services.
• Loss of forests, alienation of land and repeated displacement have further made their position vulnerable.

As these sections often face similar kind of disadvantages, the Government has launched various schemes which have similar objective but are run separately for each of these sections. Few of such schemes are given below. After these schemes, we will see specific schemes with respect to these sections. Schemes with similar objectives are:

Centrally Sponsored Scheme for implementation of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 (PCR) and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (PoA)

As the PCR and PoA Acts are implemented by the respective State Governments and Union Territory Administrations, with a view to ensure its effective implementation, Central assistance is provided to them under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for implementation of the PCR and PoA Acts, mainly for following purposes:-
• Functioning and strengthening of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Protection Cell and Special Police Stations.
• Setting up and functioning of exclusive Special Courts.
• Relief and Rehabilitation of atrocity victims.
• Incentive for Inter-Caste Marriages.
• Awareness generation.

Stand-Up India Scheme
Stand-Up India Scheme facilitates bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 Crore to at least one Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) borrower and at least one woman borrower per bank branch for setting up a greenfield enterprise. This enterprise may be in manufacturing, services or the trading sector. In case of non-individual enterprises at least 51% of the shareholding and controlling stake should be held by either an SC/ST or woman entrepreneur.

Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojana
The Government of India, Ministry of Tribal Affairs has launched Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana (VKY) for welfare of Tribals. VKY aims at creating enabling environment for need based and outcome oriented holistic development of the tribal people. This process envisages to ensure that all the intended benefits of goods and services under various programmes/schemes of Central as well as State Governments actually reach the target groups by convergence of resources through appropriate institutional mechanism.

Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub Plan (SCA to TSP)                                                                                                                                

The Special Central Assistance (SCA) is provided by the Ministry of tribal Affairs to the State Government as an additive to the State TSP. SCA is Primarily meant for family-oriented income-generation schemes in sectors of agriculture, horticulture sericulture and animal husbandry cooperation. A part of SCA (not more than 30%) is also permitted to be used for development of infrastructure incidental to such income generating schemes.

Top Class Education for ST Students
This is a Central Sector Scholarship Scheme for ST students introduced from the academic year 2007-08 with the objective of encouraging meritorious ST students for pursing studies at Degree and Post Graduate level in any of the Institutes identified by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for the purpose.

Vocational Training Centres in Tribal Areas
The main aim of this scheme is to upgrade the skills of the tribal youth in various traditional/ modern vocations depending upon their educational qualification, present economic trends and the market potential, which would enable them to gain suitable employment or enable them to become self-employed.

Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Hostels for ST boys and ST Girls
The primary objective of the modification is to attract the implementing agencies for undertaking hostel construction programme for ST Girls studying in middle schools, higher secondary schools, colleges and universities towards the broader vision of containment and reduction of their dropout rate.

Establishment of Ashram Schools in Tribal Sub-Plan Areas
The objective of the scheme is to provide residential schools for Scheduled Tribes including PTGs in an environment conducive to learning to increase the literacy rate among the tribal students and to bring them at par with other population of the country.

Eklavya Model Residential School
In the context of the trend of establishing quality residential schools for the promotion of education in all areas and habitations in the country, the Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) for ST students take their place among the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas and the Kendriya Vidyalayas.