The Ministry of Tribal Affairs was awarded the "Skoch Challenger Award" for the second consecutive year. The award has been received for outstanding work in e-governance. Cabinet Minister Arjun Munda on Saturday virtually received the award.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has taken several transformative initiatives recently. All processes leading to a paperless office have been digitized. Monitoring is data driven. Communication to states is an online report system and is analytics based and a performance dashboard is updated on a real-time basis. There is transparency with public domain tribe related data: Performance Dashboard, Effort-PMO Dashboard, NITI Aayog and DBT Mission.

Union Minister Arjun Munda said, “There has been a dramatic change in our attitude towards policy making and action. We want an evidence based policy, which will be realistic and will solve the problems of tribals at the grassroots level. Also, we are adopting a digital route for changes which ensures transparency and speed of delivery. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has digitized the entire process of scholarship release. Beneficiary data is available online and 19 states / UTs are sending data using web services and 12 on National Scholarship Portal (NSP). DBT Mission All 5 scholarship schemes have been digitized. 13 schemes are on the ministry dashboard, 6 initiatives are on the PMO dashboard.”

“The entire process of issuing scholarships online has helped 64 lakh beneficiaries to get scholarships directly into their accounts through DBT. The availability of data on the PM dashboard, ministry and DBT dashboard adds transparency. The Ministry has launched a unique project to solve the problem of water from ice-stupas in Ladakh. It is a way to store the frozen molten water in winter which can be used during the spring season. More than 35 villages have already benefited from this. In addition, the health portal is a one-stop solution presenting the health and nutritional status of tribal population in India,” he added.