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The Scheduled Area notified by the Government of
India consists of 5809 villages and 16 towns in 12 districts covering
an area of 46,531 sq. Kms, which is about 15.1% of the area of the
State. These districts are Thane, Pune, Nashik, Dhule, Nandurbar,
Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Nanded, Amravati, Yeotmal, Gadchiroli and Chandrapur.
The Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) area covers the scheduled area. In addition,
the State Government felt that 773 villages in the districts of
Raigad, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur, Yeotmal and Pune also deserved
to be extended the benefits of TSP, though these villages did not
strictly satisfy the criteria laid down by the Government of India
for inclusion in TSP area. These areas were designated as Additional
Tribal Sub-Plan (ATSP) areas. In addition, the Government
of India had also decided that a group of villages having a total
population of 10,000 or more with more than 50% tribals should be
brought under the Modified Area Development Approach (MADA). Similarly,
a group of villages having a total population of more than 5000
with more than 50% tribals are to be constituted into Mini-MADA
pockets. In all 1754 villages in the State have been included in
MADA and Mini-MADA pockets. All the benefits available to the tribals
in the TSP areas as approved by the Government of India have been
extended to the tribals in the ATSP, MADA and Mini-MADA areas.
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The population of scheduled tribes in Maharashtra
as per the 1991 census was 73.18 lakh (Maharshtra has the second
highest tribal population in the country, next to Madhya Pradesh
having a population of 154 lakh). 49.0 % of the tribals live in
scheduled areas (main TSP area), 2.6% in ATSP areas, 6.8% in MADA
and Mini-MADA pockets. The remaining 41.6% of the tribals
live outside all these areas.
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