Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Unnat Gram Abhiyan (PMJUGA) is a national mission launched on October 2, 2024, to transform the socio-economic conditions of Scheduled Tribe communities through convergence of central and state government schemes.

Basic Details

Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
Nomenclature: Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA).
Cabinet Approval: 18 September 2024.
Launched: 2 October 2024, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand.
Coverage Criteria: Villages with at least 500 population and 50% Scheduled Tribe concentration, plus tribal villages in Aspirational Districts.
Beneficiaries: Over 5 crore tribal citizens — roughly half of India's total Scheduled Tribe population.
Total Budget: ₹79,156 crore over a five-year period (2024–2029).
Funding Pattern: Central Share ₹56,333 crore and State Share ₹22,823 crore, routed through the Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes (DAPST).

Core Objectives

Infrastructure Saturation: To provide all-weather road connectivity, electricity, clean drinking water, and broadband to remote tribal hamlets.
Economic Empowerment: To promote tribal entrepreneurship, sustainable forest produce processing, and tribal eco-tourism homestays.
Human Development: To eradicate malnutrition, lower school dropout rates, and provide specialized healthcare for Sickle Cell Disease.

Key Interventions and Design

Inter-Ministerial Convergence: Integrates 25 flagship schemes managed by 17 central ministries into a single village-level monitoring framework.
Tribal Homestays Scheme: Offers financial assistance to tribal families to construct and operate homestays, boosting local tourism revenue.
FRA Cell Support: Strengthens infrastructure and land development support for individual and community forest title holders under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
Poshan and Health Focus: Establishes specialized nutrition hubs and mobile health clinics to address endemic health challenges in remote belts.

Significance

Scale of Coverage: At ₹79,156 crore across 63,843 villages in 549 districts, PMJUGA is designed to reach roughly half of India's entire Scheduled Tribe population within a single five-year cycle — a coverage scale no earlier tribal-development scheme has attempted.
Convergence Over Fragmentation: By coordinating 25 interventions across 17 central ministries under one saturation plan per village, PMJUGA avoids the gaps left when individual ministries ran separate, uncoordinated tribal-welfare schemes — a single village now gets roads, housing, health, and livelihood support together rather than piecemeal.
Livelihood Alongside Infrastructure: Unlike earlier schemes that focused mainly on physical infrastructure, PMJUGA pairs infrastructure saturation with livelihood measures — tribal homestays, minor forest produce processing, and FRA title-holder support — aimed at durable income generation, not just one-time asset creation.