3 nomadic tribes identified in Tamil Nadu

Idate held discussions with officials of various departments including Revenue and Education about the status of nomadic tribes in the district. Speaking to the press, he claimed that the National Commission, chaired by him, was formed on January 9, 2015, and since have visited 29 states to assess the situation of nomadic and denotified tribes in the country. 

Tamil Nadu has a rare situation where there are no denotified tribes but only denotified communities. There are about 68 denotified communities in the state but he is not sure how many of them will be transcended into denotified tribes list. 

In the inquiries, only three communities - Narikuravars, Boomboom Maattukarar and Sattai Adikiravar – have been identified as nomadic tribes so far.  They will be moved into the list of Scheduled Tribes as there is no separate list of denotified tribes in the state. Idate said, Maharashtra was the only state in India to recognise denotified and nomadic tribes by giving a separate reservation of 11 percentage for them. 

In 2005, the union government had appointed the Renke Commission, which submitted its report in 2008. A committee to study the recommendations of the commission was setup and it had recommended for a new commission. 

Following this a new commission headed by Idate was formed. When asked why some of the nomadic communities are not included in any of the lists, Idate replied that the first list of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, after the independence, was released in 1950 but the new list of denotified tribes was formed only in 1952 after the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 was repealed. 

Hence there exists problems which would be addressed by the commission by meeting the community leaders of various nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. Regarding problems in obtaining community certificates for the nomadic communities, Idate said that it was a nation-wide problem and is of more serious in nature.