Bhubaneswar: Two more tribal communities of Odisha will get the ST tag soon as two amendment bills have been cleared by both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha this week.
The Lok Sabha on Thursday 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.
Both the bills received support from the MPs across the party lines.
The Rajya Sabha had passed these two Bills earlier on Tuesday. The bills will be sent to President Droupadi Murmu for approval.
After the Presidential order, there will be two new entries in the list of 62 tribal communities of Odisha increasing it 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.
Congress MP Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka from Odisha welcomed the Bills in the Lok Sabha.
