Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DA-JGUA)

What is Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan?

Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DA-JGUA) is a saturation mission of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs launched by the Prime Minister on 2 October 2024 from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. The name honours Birsa Munda, known as Dharti Aaba, and the Abhiyan is designed to close infrastructure and human-development gaps in tribal-majority villages rather than to create a new cash benefit.

According to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs website, the Abhiyan comprises 25 interventions implemented by 17 line ministries and aims to saturate infrastructure gaps in 63,843 villages across 549 districts and 2,911 blocks in 30 states and union territories, benefiting more than 5 crore tribal citizens over five years.

The total outlay is Rs 79,156 crore, made up of a central share of Rs 56,333 crore and a state share of Rs 22,823 crore. The DA-JGUA guidelines dated 30 October 2024 state that funding is drawn from the existing Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes (DAPST) allocations of the participating ministries, and that the interventions will continue till 2029.

Key objectives

• Develop enabling infrastructure in selected tribal-majority villages.
• Improve access to education, healthcare, skills and Anganwadi services.
• Provide sustainable livelihood opportunities to Scheduled Tribe households.
• Achieve saturation through convergence, so that no eligible household in a covered village is left out of any central scheme it qualifies for.

Main features

• Whole-of-government mission with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs as nodal agency.
• Each of the 17 ministries carries its own budget and physical targets.
• Village-level, not household-level, targeting. The unit of planning is the village.
• Progress monitored through the PM GatiShakti dashboard.

Who is eligible for Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan?

DA-JGUA selects villages, not applicants. Eligibility therefore works at two levels: whether your village is on the list, and whether you qualify for the particular underlying scheme.

Your village is covered if:

• It has a population of 500 or more and at least 50% tribal residents, or
• It lies in an Aspirational District and has a tribal population of 50 or more, and
• It appears in the official list of 63,843 villages published as Annexure-I to the DA-JGUA guidelines on the Ministry of Tribal Affairs website.

You cannot apply if:

• You are an individual seeking a personal cash grant; DA-JGUA has no DBT component of its own and no individual application form.
• Your village is not on the notified list of 63,843 villages; a household cannot nominate its own village for inclusion.
• You do not meet the eligibility rules of the underlying scheme. A household that is already a PMAY-G beneficiary, for example, is not eligible for a second house merely because its village is covered by DA-JGUA.
• You are seeking the FRA-linked agriculture, fisheries or livestock support but do not hold a Forest Rights Act patta or a Community Forest Resource right.

What are the 25 interventions under DA-JGUA?

The DA-JGUA guidelines set out the ministry-wise interventions and revised norms. The main ones are:

The Tribal Affairs component also funds 100 Tribal Multipurpose Marketing Centres, upgrades to Ashram schools and hostels, Centres of Competence and counselling for Sickle Cell Disease, FRA cells and CFR management plans, and annual incentives totalling Rs 20 crore for the best-performing tribal districts.

What documents are required for DA-JGUA benefits?

How to apply for DA-JGUA benefits

Individuals cannot apply for DA-JGUA as a personal scheme; there is no application form, no registration number and no direct benefit transfer under the Abhiyan itself. What a tribal household can do is claim the underlying scheme benefit that DA-JGUA is funding in its village.

1. Check whether your village is covered. Open the Ministry of Tribal Affairs page at tribal.nic.in/dajagua.aspx and download Annexure-I: List of Villages under DA-JGUA to confirm your village is among the 63,843 listed.
2. Attend the village saturation camp. Under the Dharti Aaba Janbhagidari Abhiyan, camps are held in covered villages where officials record missing entitlements and issue documents on the spot. Carry your ST certificate, Aadhaar and bank passbook.
3. Identify the specific scheme you need, using the mapping above, PMAY-G for a house, Jal Jeevan Mission for a tap connection, PM Ujjwala for an LPG connection, PM-JAY for a health card.
4. Apply to that scheme through its own channel — the Gram Panchayat secretary, the Block Development Office, or the scheme's own portal.
5. Follow up with the district nodal officer for tribal welfare, who coordinates DA-JGUA implementation for your district under the district collector.
6. Track village-level progress on the PM GatiShakti dashboard linked from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs DA-JGUA page.

How much does DA-JGUA spend and on what?

DA-JGUA does not pay a fixed amount to a person. The Rs 79,156 crore outlay is distributed across ministry-wise physical targets. The largest identifiable allocations named in the guidelines are Rs 2,500 crore over five years for sustainable agriculture support to FRA patta holders, Rs 375 crore for aquaculture, Rs 75 crore for animal husbandry, Rs 50 crore per year for digital initiatives, and Rs 30 crore for FRA capacity building.

Where a beneficiary contribution applies, the agriculture, aquaculture and animal husbandry components. The guidelines cap it at up to 10% of the unit cost.

How is DA-JGUA monitored?

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs serves as the nodal agency and maintains the mission dashboard. Implementation runs through state tribal welfare departments and district administrations, with each of the 17 ministries responsible for its own intervention, budget and targets. The guidelines require KPIs to be defined for every intervention with monthly, quarterly and annual timelines.

Help and grievance redressal

• Ministry of Tribal Affairs: 011-23383303, with support lines on 011-23381652 and 011-23381903
• District nodal officer for tribal welfare in your district, working under the district collector
• Gram Panchayat secretary for entitlement gaps recorded at saturation camps
• Underlying scheme helplines for scheme-specific complaints, for example the PMAY-G, Jal Jeevan Mission or PM-JAY helplines

No fee is charged under DA-JGUA. Any person demanding money to add your name or your village to the Abhiyan is not acting on behalf of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.