MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD BETWEEN SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRIBAL AFFAIRS AND SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF DRINKING WATER SUPPLY ON COORDINATION BETWEEN THE TWO DEPARTMENTS

A coordination meeting between Shri Palat Mohandas, Secretary, Department of Drinking Water Supply and Dr. A. V. S. Reddy , Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Welfare was held on 24th June , 2004 at 1030 hours in the office chamber of Secretary, Department of Drinking Water Supply, in Nirman Bhawan. The meeting was attended by the following other officers :-

Ministry of Tribal Welfare
1. Shri Samirendra Chatterjee, Joint Secretary

Department of Drinking Water Supply
1. Shri Rakesh Behari, Joint Secretary
2. Shri Kumar Alok, Deputy Secretary

2. Initiating the discussion, Secretary, Department of Drinking Water Supply highlighted the importance of coordination between the two departments to promote convergence of efforts for better implementation of developmental programmes for tribal population in the country. He mentioned that although the responsibility of Department of Drinking Water Supply was to provide water supply and sanitation facilities to all sections of the society, Ministry of Tribal Welfare could give instructions to the officers at the States and districts level to play a pro-active role to ensure that the poor tribal beneficiaries are also able to avail full benefits of these development programmes. If there were gaps in the programme of this Ministry, the same might be fulfilled by the programme of Ministry of Tribal Welfare. This would help all round development of tribal villages.

3. Secretary, Tribal Welfare desired that a list of villages where water supply and sanitation facilities had been provided might be given to his Ministry so that they would try to target the uncovered villages through their programmes. Also in such covered villages, some other basic facilities could be provided with Tribal Welfare funds. It was decided to share the water supply survey data as well as progress report of Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) with Tribal Welfare Ministry for their use.

4. Secretary, Department of Drinking Water Supply and Secretary, Tribal Welfare agreed that there was necessity for a comprehensive action plan involving all development departments for all around development of tribal areas and the benefits of programmes supported by Department of Drinking Water Supply should also be reaped by the tribal villages.

5. It was decided that models of toilets and technical notes developed by Department of Drinking Water Supply on sanitation would be shared with Ministry of Tribal Welfare.

6. It was agreed that instructions will be issued from the Tribal Welfare Department to all the States to ensure that all new school buildings are constructed with proper toilet facilities and in all the existing schools , toilet facilities should be provided within the next two year i.e. by 2005-06.

7. Since, Department of Drinking Water Supply is already supporting the States for providing these facilities, Tribal Welfare functionaries should primarily focus on monitoring of the programme and ensuring that these facilities are created in the schools in TSP areas.

8. It was felt that a list of such districts where tribal population is predominant should be worked out and specials efforts should be made by the Tribal Welfare functionaries both at the state and district level to ensure that benefits of Swajaldhara, ARWSP and TSC accrue to the tribal beneficiaries. For this purpose, secretary, Tribal welfare of the State Govt. should actively participate in the State Water & Sanitation Mission (SWSM) headed by the Chief Secretary of the State and District Tribal Welfare officer should actively involve themselves in the District Water & Sanitation Missions (DWSM) at the district level.

9. Department of Drinking Water Supply is supporting inter and intra State visit by field functionaries to see and learn from the good practices in other areas. Secretary, Department of Drinking Water Supply desired that Tribal Welfare functionaries and Tribal opinion leaders should also be included in such visits.

10. Joint Secretary, Tribal Welfare appreciated the idea of training of tribal masons in the TSC project districts. He assured that his Ministry would be in a position to support vocational training for the masons.

11. In the end, Secretary , Tribal Welfare and Secretary , Department of Drinking Water Supply jointly highlighted the necessity of convergent action for the benefit of tribal people and felt that a comprehensive instructions by both the Departments may be issued to the respective line departments in the State. It was also felt that officers in Department of Drinking Water Supply and Tribal Welfare would meet separately to work out further details of the convergent action plan.

The meeting ended with thanks to all the participants.