3 min readRaipurMar 19, 2026 05:18 PM IST
Two decades after tribals from the Bastar region migrated to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Telangana following the Maoist conflict, a Chhattisgarh government survey has estimated the state’s internally displaced people at 31,098.
The figure, which includes those who fled their homes in the 2000s — when counterinsurgency operations that also involved the Salwa Judum were at its peak in Chhattisgarh — was submitted to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), recently. This comes after the NCST once again urged the state government on January 19 to conduct a survey of Chhattisgarh IDPs.
The push came over three years after an association of such IDPs approached the Commission in March 2022, alleging that the governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were “taking away their lands” in forest areas.
According to the latest survey, of the 31,098 IDPs from Chhattisgarh, 20,455 are in Telangana and 10,643 in Andhra Pradesh, with a state government official saying the numbers could rise.
A total of 6,939 families across 651 villages in Bijapur, Sukma and Dantewada have been displaced. Of these, 22,813 are from Sukma, 5,063 from Bijapur and the remaining 3,222 from Dantewada.
“In February this year, a committee was formed to make a strong rehabilitation plan for the IDPs to resettle them in Chhattisgarh,” Sonmoni Borah, principal secretary of the tribal development department, told The Indian Express.
Last September, The Indian Express reported that several states had refused to recognise the land rights of Chhattisgarh IDPs. While the state government had put the number of IDPs at over 10,000, the NCST felt it was “too low” and urged a fresh survey.
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The development comes as the central government’s March 31 deadline to end the Maoist movement looms.
Tribal activists have welcomed the development. “This is good news. It was a long battle of many years for the displaced to reach here,” tribal activist Shubhranshu Chowdhary says. In 2019, Choudhary petitioned the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) seeking a survey of Chhattisgarh’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). “The Ministry of Home Affairs should take the lead to get all the concerned states on one table to finalise a rehabilitation plan for the IDPs as advised by NCST.”
In its letter to the central government on February 25, the NCST urged it to “permanently resolve” the issue on the lines of the Bru-Reang agreement in Mizoram and Tripura, where tribals had the option to either be rehabilitated in their home state or in the state where they have settled.
It also requested the Tribal Affairs Ministry to coordinate with states on matters related to the Forest Rights Act.
