MPPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 30 of 100

Correct — C, 31. Madhya Pradesh's Tribal Affairs Department administers its tribal sub-plan area through 26 major (वृहद) and 5 medium (मध्यम) Integrated Tribal Development Projects — 26 + 5 = 31 — and separately through 30 MADA pockets and 6 small cluster (लघु अंचल) projects. The department's own description of its set-up gives exactly this break-up, and each project carries a Project Administrator/Officer responsible for scheme formulation, budget management, supervision, monitoring and coordination among the development departments working in that area.

• (a)20 — Lower than the count of major projects alone (26), so it cannot be the major-plus-medium total.
• (b)25 — The near-miss for a half-remembered '26 major projects' — and it leaves out the 5 medium projects that the question explicitly asks you to add.
• (d)36 — 36 is what you get by adding the other two categories — 30 MADA pockets + 6 small cluster projects. Those units are counted separately from the Integrated Tribal Development Projects and are not part of the major-plus-medium total.

The Integrated Tribal Development Project is the field unit of the Tribal Sub-Plan strategy adopted from the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974–79). Contiguous areas where Scheduled Tribes form a majority were grouped into ITDPs/ITDAs; smaller concentrations outside those blocks were covered as MADA (Modified Area Development Approach) pockets and, below that, as clusters; and the most fragile groups were taken up under separate PVTG programmes. Madhya Pradesh, which has the largest Scheduled Tribe population of any Indian state, runs all four layers at once.

The question is a plain count, but the counting rule is the real test: it asks only for major + medium ITDPs, so MADA pockets and small clusters must be left out. Learn the department's break-up as one line — 26 + 5 ITDPs, 30 MADA pockets, 6 small clusters — and every variant of this question (total ITDPs, total MADA pockets, total units) becomes answerable.

• Madhya Pradesh Tribal Affairs Department's break-up: 26 major projects, 5 medium projects, 30 MADA pockets and 6 small cluster (लघु अंचल) projects.
• Major + medium Integrated Tribal Development Projects = 31 — the figure asked here.
• Each project has a Project Administrator/Officer for scheme formulation, budget management, supervision, monitoring and inter-departmental coordination.
• The ITDP framework flows from the Tribal Sub-Plan strategy introduced in the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974–79).
• MADA pockets are contiguous pockets of roughly 10,000 population with 50% or more Scheduled Tribe concentration; clusters are a still smaller unit.

• Merging MADA pockets and clusters into the ITDP count — the question asks only for major + medium projects.
• Confusing the number of projects with the number of tribal-majority districts or blocks.
• Assuming ITDPs and Fifth Schedule 'Scheduled Areas' are the same thing — the ITDP is a planning/administrative unit, the Scheduled Area is a constitutional notification.

MPPSC lifts bare administrative counts straight from the department's own descriptions of its set-up; UPSC instead tests the constitutional layer (Fifth Schedule, PESA) and the concept of the Tribal Sub-Plan. Prepare both layers for the same topic.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the tribal development strategy, MADA (Modified Area Development Approach) pockets are identified as:

  • (a)contiguous pockets of about 10,000 population with 50% or more Scheduled Tribe concentration
  • (b)any village having at least one tribal family
  • (c)districts where the Collector belongs to a Scheduled Tribe
  • (d)areas where forest cover exceeds 50% of the geographical area

  Answer(a) contiguous pockets of about 10,000 population with 50% or more ST concentration.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Tribal Sub-Plan strategy, under which Integrated Tribal Development Projects were created, was introduced during which Five Year Plan?

  • (a)Third
  • (b)Fourth
  • (c)Fifth
  • (d)Seventh

  Answer(c) Fifth Five Year Plan (1974–79).