The Government has decided to constitute an apex panel for tribal welfare. It will be headed by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The National Council for Tribal Welfare has a mandate to provide broad policy guidelines to bring about improvement in the lives of the Scheduled Tribe community in the country.

The 18-member panel will also review the implementation of the Forest Rights Act besides monitoring the implementation of Tribal Sub-Plan and the programmes aimed at protecting vulnerable tribal groups. The Meetings of the Council would be linked with the meetings of the National Development Council (NDC) to ensure that they are held regularly and the Chief Ministers are able to attend during NDC meeting.