The minister is nuts. He is putting the cart before the horse. Development can never occur through either State or corporate handouts. There is no "delivery mechanism" required.
Rather, The Market is about "production and exchange." Production comes first. These people must be free to produce for the market, and then be free to exchange their produce for procuring their needs. This is how the horse comes before the cart.
What do these people produce?
First and foremost, they produce an excellent alcoholic drink called mahua, named after a jungle flower from which it is distilled. This is illegal today. This ban must be immediately lifted and mahua plantations encouraged in the jungles. This mahua must be freely sold throughout India, and it should be seen as the patriotic duty of all Indians to patronize this drink.
Second: every tribal household is able to produce a rice beer called handia. For this too I prescribe Liberty.
Thirdly: In many of these jungle areas, especially in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, the tribals are growing ganja. This must be legalized too.
Fourthly: These areas are rich in minerals. These minerals do not belong to the Central State; they belong to these tribals. Private Property must be respected in law. Let all the royalties from mining go to these tribal communities. Let their local governments be fully empowered to allow (or disallow) mining. There is an interesting interview with Bianca Jagger in today's ToI where she speaks of tribal exploitation by mining giants in cohorts with the Central State. This must stop.
Lastly: As with minerals, so too with forests and wildlife - these belong to the tribals and they must be free to utilize them for their own benefit. They must be free to grow and sell timber. They must be free to farm and sell wildlife products - like venison. Our 5-star hotels should serve venison steaks with mahua to wash them down - and we will soon find these very people buying cars, computers and whatever else the cronies of CII produce.
This is how we put the horse before the cart.
These very questions plagued the British parliament in the 18th century, when the debate over free trade for Ireland arose. Ireland was then the poorest province of Europe. People were starving. And the British government denied them the freedom to trade. As public anger mounted, and volunteers were armed to resist the State, the government asked many eminent people for their opinion on what should be done, among them Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations had just been published - and hugely praised.
Adam Smith called for free trade for Ireland, even though it would hurt English and Scottish monopolies. He rallied against these "most absurd monopolies that we have most absurdly instituted against ourselves." He placed the cart before the horse. He saw that if the Irish sell their produce, they will accumulate Capital, and they will increase their consumption. They will survive. Public anger would recede. The Irish would focus on production and exchange, instead of spending their energies and their lives on insurrection.
To paraphrase Smith, we could today, in India, on the question of the Maoists, speak of the "most absurd RESTRICTIONS we have most absurdly imposed upon ourselves - and also upon these tribals." Liberty is the answer. All these absurd restrictions must go.
Further, Private Property must be the Law.
To conclude: I once met an Englishman at a rock concert in New Delhi who had arrived there after a stint in Kabul, where he had gone as a humanitarian volunteer. When asked about conditions in Kabul he told me:
Where there is no economy, what can a young man do but pick up a gun and join one predatory gang or another?
This is the situation in our tribal heartlands. There is no economy. The minister himself admits that the government model of development has failed. They put the cart before the horse. Government action can NEVER lead to development - but it can thwart it, and it has. The answer is to get The Market working - by giving these people the Liberty to produce and exchange.
There is no other solution.
Recommended read: My earlier post on Adam Smith on the Irish question.
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