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.

How to check your application status

DA-JGUA itself has no application number and no applicant-facing status portal, because the Abhiyan does not process individual applications. What can actually be tracked falls into two separate layers: whether your village's saturation work is progressing, and whether your own claim under an underlying scheme has been approved.

To check village-level saturation progress:

1. Visit the Ministry of Tribal Affairs DA-JGUA page at tribal.nic.in/dajagua.aspx and look for the linked PM GatiShakti dashboard, which shows physical and financial progress by ministry, state and district.
2. Ask the district nodal officer for tribal welfare, working under the district collector, for the saturation status of your specific village. District administrations hold village-wise checklists of which of the 25 interventions have been completed, are in progress, or are pending.
3. Raise the question at the next Gram Sabha meeting or Dharti Aaba Janbhagidari Abhiyan camp in your village. Camp registers record which households have received which entitlement, so this is often the fastest way to find out if your name is already listed for a benefit.

To check the status of your own claim under an underlying scheme, use that scheme's own tracking channel rather than anything DA-JGUA-specific, since DA-JGUA money flows through the parent scheme's existing systems:

• PMAY-G housing: check the beneficiary status on the PMAY-G portal using your registration number or Aadhaar, or ask the Gram Panchayat secretary who processed your application.
• Jal Jeevan Mission tap connection: check with the Block Development Office or the Jal Jeevan Mission dashboard for your Gram Panchayat's functional household tap connection (FHTC) count.
• PM Ujjwala LPG connection: follow up with the LPG distributor where the application was filed, using the reference number given at the time of application.
• PM-JAY health card: verify beneficiary status through the Ayushman Bharat portal or by calling the PM-JAY helpline with your ST certificate and Aadhaar details.

Because DA-JGUA has no single tracking number of its own, keep the acknowledgement or reference number issued by whichever underlying scheme you applied to; that is the only document that lets any helpline or portal pull up your case.

Common reasons for rejection

Because DA-JGUA delivers benefits through 25 separate schemes rather than approving or rejecting applications itself, a "rejection" in practice means the underlying scheme declined or stalled a claim. The recurring patterns are:

Village not on the notified list. A household living in a genuinely poor or tribal-dominated area is sometimes turned away because its village does not appear in the official Annexure-I list of 63,843 villages, for example if the village falls just under the 500-population or 50% tribal-population threshold. The fix is to confirm the exact list entry on the Ministry of Tribal Affairs website before applying anywhere; if the village is missing, the claim needs to go through the underlying scheme's normal (non-DA-JGUA) eligibility route instead, since there is no appeal specific to DA-JGUA village selection.

Household already covered under the same scheme. A family that has already received a PMAY-G house, an existing PM-JAY card, or a prior LPG connection is not eligible for a duplicate benefit simply because its village is now saturated under DA-JGUA. Check your family's existing scheme history before filing a fresh claim, since DA-JGUA saturation targets households that are missing an entitlement, not households re-applying for one they hold.

Missing or mismatched Scheduled Tribe certificate. Several of the underlying schemes require the ST certificate to match the applicant's name and address exactly as recorded in the household's other identity documents. A certificate issued in a different name spelling, an old address, or one that has expired commonly causes rejection at the scheme level. Get the certificate re-verified or corrected at the tehsil or revenue office before resubmitting.

Aadhaar not seeded to the bank account. Because PMAY-G, PM Ujjwala and other DBT-linked components pay through Aadhaar-seeded accounts, a claim can stall indefinitely if the bank account is not linked, even after the underlying application is otherwise approved. Visit the bank branch to complete Aadhaar seeding and confirm it with a passbook update.

No Forest Rights Act patta for FRA-linked components. The sustainable agriculture, aquaculture and animal husbandry interventions under DA-JGUA are restricted to FRA patta holders or Community Forest Resource rights holders. Applicants without a patta are routinely turned away from these specific components; the remedy is to pursue an FRA claim through the Gram Sabha and Sub-Divisional Level Committee first, since DA-JGUA cannot grant these benefits without an underlying forest right in place.

Application filed at the wrong counter. Because there is no DA-JGUA application form, some households mistakenly try to file a claim "under DA-JGUA" at the district tribal welfare office instead of at the correct scheme counter (the Gram Panchayat for PMAY-G, the Block Development Office for Jal Jeevan Mission, the LPG distributor for Ujjwala). This causes the claim to sit unprocessed rather than being formally rejected. Always route the application to the underlying scheme's own office, and use the district nodal officer only to escalate a claim that is stuck, not to file it in the first place.