Except voter ID card, this tribal community has no essential documents to access welfare schemes

On October 7, these families reached the Zilla Parishad office in Pune, demanding to be officially included under Bhorghar, which is just 5 km from their current settlement.

Rajendra Sawale, up-sarpanch of Bhorghar, said that generations of these families, since the 1980s, have been unable to access government welfare schemes due to the lack of essential documents like birth and death certificates. “The only document we have is the voter ID card, which is used for elections. Some families manage to access PDS items from Bhorghar,” he said.

Sawale emphasised that this issue highlights the challenges faced by the Katkari community, classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), in accessing support from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA). “MoTA has launched several schemes for the welfare of Scheduled Tribes, including Special Central Assistance to the Tribal Sub-Scheme, grants-in-aid under Article 275(1) of the Constitution, and the development of PVTGs,” he added.

Babban Pawar, who studied until Class 7, said that he is a fisherman, but fishing is a seasonal job. “After the fishing season, we are left in limbo, sometimes finding labour work, sometimes not. There are no roads, no education, no admission to ashram schools, and no health facilities because our settlement is not officially registered under any village,” he said.

Ganesh Mukane, 25, who also works as a fisherman, shared a similar story. He studied until the Class 4, and after his parents passed away, he couldn’t even obtain their death certificates. “We are living in a Schedule V area, which is specially provisioned for tribal-dominant regions, but no government authority focuses on us except during election time,” he said.

Pune Zilla Parishad CEO Santosh Patil explained that the remaining villagers, holding land parcels after Ambegaon’s resettlement, are demanding to be included under Bhorghar village to access government facilities and amenities. “We submitted a proposal to the higher authorities last year, but there were some queries. We complied and resubmitted the proposal last month. The latest update is that the principal secretary of the Rural Development Department (RDD) has forwarded the proposal to the ministry concerned,” Patil said.

“There is a possibility of approval tomorrow,” he added.