2,000 tribal youths to visit 10 cities to know development process, first batch leaves for Vadodara

Lohardaga (Jharkhand): Around 2,000 tribal youths from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha will be taken to ten important cities as part of 9th Adivasi cultural programme.

The selection of youths including girls was made at the 158th Battalion camp of the CRPF here.

Flagging off the first batch from Jharkhand, Commandant of the battalion Manoj Kumar Gupta told reporters that the batch would visit Baroda as part of a tribal cultural exchange programme to interact with people there, understand their culture, development process and also visit tourist spots.

Altogether 70 tribal girls and boys selected from the state have been divided into four groups, he said adding, while the first batch left for Baroda today, the second batch would leave for Pune on January 4, third batch to Chennai on January 24 and fourth batch to Bangalore on February 4.

The objective behind the programme was to make the tribal youth understand about the places they visit and interact with people and know their culture, he said.

This would encourage the youths to play a role in the development process in their villages affected by Maoist activities, Gupta said.

Gupta expressed confidence that the youths would play a role in the development process in and around their villages on return.

PTI