Indira Gandhi National Tribal University

Indira Gandhi National Tribal University is being set up at Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh to facilitate and promote avenues of higher education and research facilities for the tribal population in the country. It would be located in a serene pilgrimage point in the Vindhyas, which is close to the tribal areas of MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.Situated at an altitude of 1065 mt. at the meeting point of the Vindhya and the Satpura mountain ranges amongst sylvan surroundings, Amarkantak is a great pilgrim centre as well as a source of the rivers Narmada and Sone. While the Narmada flows westwards from Amarkantak, the Sone flows towards the East.Parliament had passed the Act for this university following concern over the low enrolment of tribal students in the higher education institutions. At present the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of the tribal students for higher studies is only 6.61 compared to the national GER of 11.6. The GER of tribal girls is even lower at 4.69.While north-eastern states have at least one central university in each state, there is no central university specifically catering to the population in the other tribal concentrated area of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand.The university would have a higher percentage of students from the tribal populations and all the governing authorities of the university would have majority members exclusively from the tribal communities