Speaking at a meeting with State Secretaries, Commissioners, Administrators of Union Territories he said that Under the Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub Plans, various income generation activities should be implemented for overall developments of the Scheduled Tribes and urged the state governments to utilize the funds available through Article 275(1) grant. Activities for improving infrastructural facilities can also be undertaken.

Among the infrastructural facilities, the Minister particularly laid emphasis on education. He called for plugging drop outs at the primary school level and utilisation of funds available for the Ekalavya Model Residential Schools as this was one of successful schemes for developing educational facilities for Scheduled Tribes. The Minister also called for ensuring the quality of education at other education institutions like the Ashram Schools.

The Minister highlighted that in the Vocational Training programmes, accreditation of institutions is a major bottleneck and the concerned States/UTs ,must make efforts to get vocational training institutes accredited as this would help in improving self employment/job opportunities for the Scheduled Tribes. The Minister also stressed upon the improvement of the health infrastructure in tribal areas . he pointed out that the problem of left wing extremism in tribal areas could not be dealt only as a law and order problem it had to be tackled by providing all basic infrastructure facilities like health, education, training and employment.

Speaking about the Forest Right Act, the Minister said that this Act has come as a ray of hope to the tribal people and has helped in ensuring the rights of the forest dwellers which were their traditional and heritable rights. The States/UTs have shown progress in varying degrees in the implementation of the Act. He called upon all States to start implementing the Act to the fullest so that benefits accrue to whom they are due.

Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Mahadeo Singh Khandela pointed out that 97% of the total budget of funds of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for 2010-11 had been released to the States. In the current financial year also the Ministry has already released 53% of its budget for the States to implement various schemes . He expressed hope that the States would be able to utilise the maximum possible funds for the welfare of the tribals.

The meeting debated on various issues like grants under Article 275(1) of the Constitution, Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub Plan, hostels for Scheduled Tribe girls and boys, establishment of Ashram Schools in Tribal Sub Plan Areas, development of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal groups, post-Matriculation Scholarship, grants to Tribal Research Institutes, grants to Scheduled Tribe Developement Corporation, grants-in-aid to VOs working for the Welfare of Scheduled Tribes, strengthening education among Scheduled Tribe girls in low literacy districts and vocational training in tribal areas.