Two More Tribes of Odisha to Get ST Tag, Parliament Passes Bill for the Purpose

Bhubaneswar: Two more tribes of Odisha will get the ST tag very soon. Two amendment bills for the purpose were passed by both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha this week.

On Thursday, the Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order Amendment Bill, 2024 and Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Order Amendment Bill, 2024, for the addition of several new communities to the Scheduled Tribes list of Odisha and for the inclusion of synonyms and phonetic variations of existing tribes in the ST lists of both Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

Earlier on Tuesday, both these bills were passed in the Rajya Sabha.

Now these bills await approval of President Droupadi Murmu, following which two more tribal communities will get added to the list of 62 tribal communities of Odisha, increasing their number to 64.

The two tribal communities are Muka Dora, Mooka Dora, Nuka Dora, Nooka Dora, who are present in the undivided Koraput district that includes Koraput, Nowrangapur, Rayagada and Malkangiri districts. Besides, Konda Reddy, Konda Reddi will also be included in the ST communities list.

Similarly, two communities listed as SCs – Tamadia and Tamudia – will be removed from the SC list and included in the ST list under Bhumij category.

In addition to this, four particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) will be added to the ST list of Odisha as synonyms of communities that have already been in the list. They are Pauri Bhuyan, Paudi Bhuyan as synonyms of Bhuiya, Bhuyan; Chuktia Bhunjia as synonym of Bhunjia; Bondo as sub-entry under ST’s Bondo Poraja, Bonda Paroja, Banda Paroja; and Mankidia as synonym of ST Mankirdia.