The first tribal university of Jharkhand will come up near Jamshedpur, a minister has said.

“The state’s first tribal university will be established near Jamshedpur. The land has been finalised and construction work will commence soon. This would be the one of its kind state-owned tribal university in the eastern region,” said Champai Soren, tribal affairs minister and vice-chairperson of the newly constituted Tribal Advisory Council (TAC).

The issue of the tribal university was discussed at the second meeting of the newly constituted council chaired by chief minister Hemant Soren late on Monday evening at Ranchi.

“The objective is to conserve and develop tribal language and culture and also promote tribal scholars. The government will soon bring out an ordinance and constitute the university through an act,” the minister said.

Sources in the chief minister’s office (CMO) said that over 20 acres of land have been identified near Galudih, around 35km from Jamshedpur city, for the university.

“It has been the request of Ghatshila MLA Ramdas Soren who had given a proposal to set up the tribal university in a plot of over 20 acres of land between Galudih and Ghatshila. The land is close to NH33 — linking Jharkhand with Bengal and Bihar — and would be ideal for tribal scholars from all the three states,” said an official preferring anonymity.

The road from NH 33 leading to Galudih. Bhola Prasad

Odisha has a private tribal university but a state-owned varsity is yet to be set up in either Odisha, Bengal, Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh, which have significant tribal population. The nearest state-owned tribal university is in Madhya Pradesh.

The nearly four-hour-long meeting on Monday also decided to send a proposal on inclusion of a separate religious code for Sarna followers in the 2021 census to President Ram Nath Kovind through governor Ramesh Bais.

The state Assembly had passed a resolution in November 2020 about the inclusion of the Sarna religion code in the 2021 census but it was apparently sent directly to the President without going through the governor.

The meeting also constituted a sub-committee under the chairmanship of MLAs Stephen Marandi, Deepak Birua, Bandhu Tirkey, Bhushan Tirkey and Chamra Linda to suggest facilitating the availability of loans, including agricultural, home and education loans, to the tribal people from banks.

The meeting also decided including in the school curriculum those who had laid down their lives in the struggle for a separate state.

A committee led by chief minister Soren was also constituted to review cases of trafficking and suggesting suitable action against the perpetrators.

A committee was also constituted to probe into the alleged illegal transfer of tribal lands across Jharkhand and submit a report to the council at the earliest.