Assessment of Preferences and Achievements on Livelihood Security with Respect to Tribal Sub Plan in Manipur

Most of the areas inhabited by the tribals are remote and underdeveloped. It is difficult to think of the balanced development of the state without improving the lot of the tribal people living in hill districts. The Government of India has been formulating policies, programs, projects and schemes focusing on tribal people and investing significant financial resources. Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) is also one of the programmes initiated by the Government of India during the Fifth Five Year Plan for socio-economic amelioration of the tribal communities in India. In Manipur, the Tribal Sub-Plan intervened with an objective to provide tribal families a variety of welfare and development programmes. The present study was conducted in Kangpokpi, Chandel and Churachandpur districts of Manipur to assess the preferences and achievement on livelihood security with respect to Tribal Sub Plan in Manipur. A total of 150 TSP beneficiaries were interviewed and analyzed the collected data by using The Method of Paired Comparison. The results indicated that financial security is the most important component perceived by the respondents followed by health security, habitat security, educational security and food security, respectively. However, based on the benefit received from TSP in the study area, food security is the component where the respondents (TSP beneficiaries) received maximum benefit followed by financial security, educational security, health security and habitat security. There is a gap between the demands of the beneficiaries and actually what they are getting. It indicates that the components of livelihood security have not been implemented according to the importance of the components attached by the beneficiaries.