Tribal Livelihood and the Tribes of Pre-Divided Koraput in the Development Discourse

Objectives: To understand tribal livelihood in pre-divided Koraput with reference to tribal development.

Methods/ Statistical Analysis: This study is an attempt to highlight tribal livelihood opportunity in the pre-divided Koraput region, the plight of tribes and their exploitation in the various spheres of social life. This study is based on observation and experience accumulated from field visits accompanied with secondary sources of data collected from SC ST Research Institute, Bhubaneswar, Central Library CUO, and District Planning Office Koraput in India.

Findings: Entire tribal life was revolving around their natural resource based economic activities. The excessive interventions of human civilization in development activities based on natural resources have created major challenges for the sustainability of the tribal livelihood. After India got independence in 1947, several plans and prgrammes were under taken for the development of tribes in pre-divided Koraput and in the KBK region but no such remarkable achievement has made so far in bridging the gap of inequality among tribes and non-tribes. The illiteracy; alcohol practice and drug addiction; tradition bound culture; lack of awareness among the people; poor infrastructure facility; various forms of exploitation by non-tribes; unfriendly development policies; deforestation; mining activities; and lack of leadership poses a major challenges for tribal livelihood and tribal development.

Application/Improvement: The commercial utilization of available forest and mineral resources with the participation of tribal community can generate employment opportunity. Along with educating the tribes, the development practitioners may extensively work on sustainable livelihood among the tribes enhancing their traditional skills.