The President has given his assent to the Constitution (Ninety-fourth Amendment) Bill 2006 as passed by Parliament.  The legislation excludes Bihar from the proviso to Clause (1) of Article 164 of the Constitution which provides that there shall be a Minister in charge of tribal welfare who may in addition be in  charge of the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and backward classes in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.  It also proposes to extend the provisions of Clause (1) of Article 164   to the newly formed States of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. 

            The new States of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand came into being with the enactment of the Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 and the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000 with effect from 1^st November 2000 and 15^th November 2000 respectively.  Consequent upon their creation a sizeable portion of the Scheduled Areas of the erstwhile State of Madhya Pradesh was transferred to Chhattisgarh. Likewise, the entire Scheduled Areas of former Bihar was transferred to the newly formed Jharkhand State.  As per the census figures of 2001, the percentage of Scheduled Tribes’ population to the total population in the four States is as follows : 

SMK/SAK