Impact of PESA Act in Scheduled Areas A Case Study of Rayagada District of Odisha

The 73rd and the 74th Amendments to the Indian Constitution passed in 1992 took the three tier Panchayati Raj governance structure to rural and urban parts of the country and came into force in April 1993. However, scheduled areas, predominantly inhabited by the tribal population, were exempted from the new amendments. Given low human development indicators, there was a huge demand to empower local governance in the scheduled area as well. Thus, the government of India constituted a committee in 1994 to look into the need for such law and modalities and how it can be extended. Chaired by Dilip Singh Bhuria, a parliamentarian from Madhya Pradesh, the committee highlighted the plight of the tribal communities and the exploitation they faced and submitted its recommendations in 1995. This Article is a study of that act in a fully scheduled district of Odisha, i.e., Rayagada. The paper examines whether the well intentioned PESA Act has created any impact on self autonomy to tribal communities. The paper highlights the constitutional framework of Scheduled V Areas and the evolution of PESA Act 1996 and its background. An attempt is made to identify the gaps in compliance of other statutory State Laws with the PESA Act 1996. The paper examines the possibility of organizing a Gram Sabha within the existing rules frame work. The paper is based on both primary and secondary sources. Shri Arun Kumar Tripathy | Miss Rojalin Mohapatra "Impact of PESA Act in Scheduled Areas: A Case Study of Rayagada District of Odisha" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-6 | Issue-2 , February 2022, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd49245.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/other-scientific-research-area/other/49245/impact-of-pesa-act-in-scheduled-areas-a-case-study-of-rayagada-district-of-odisha/shri-arun-kumar-tripathy