Published Paper Details:

The tribal people of India constitute an integral part of Indian population and represent a part of Indian culture. The population of the Scheduled tribes in the country is about 67.8 million. They constitute about 8.6% of the total population. The present study focuses on the Kinnaura tribal community, a scheduled tribe, inhabiting in Kinnaur district of Shimla Division in Himachal Pradesh and both primary and secondary information and provides an overall picture of developmental initiatives taken by the Government of India and Government of Himachal Pradesh for the upliftment of tribal communities. The Indian Constitution identifies and provides special consideration for certain ethnic minority groups, traditionally referred to as tribes or tribals, as Scheduled Tribes (STs). There are 573 STs communities living in different parts of the country. Most of the tribal communities have their own languages and culture different from the language spoken in the state where they are located. Kinnaura tribes are living in hard geographical conditions. So it is not easy to survive there and also much lack of facilities in social life. However, due to the initiatives of many NGOs and other social welfare organizations in the recent times, many of the Kinnauras have shown interest in academics. The study reveals that a number of developmental programes, policies and projects have been introduced to improve the well- being of tribal people.But the issue of tribal development is still alive. It clearly indicates that we have achieved very less in this regard. In this paper the authors have tried to evaluate the policies for the upliftment of this community and further identifies some critical issues and challenges to overcome