What are the identifying criteria for PVTGs in India? Examine their current status, nomenclature and distribution. (Answer in 250 words)

- What are the identifying criteria for PVTGs in India? Examine their current status, nomenclature and distribution. (Answer in 250 words)
Introduction
Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are a sub-category within the Scheduled Tribes, created in 1975 on the Dhebar Commission's finding that the most deprived tribes were being crowded out within their own list.

Body
1. The identifying criteria: four tests applied by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs — a pre-agricultural level of technology, a stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy and a subsistence economy. A state government proposes and the Ministry concurs. Seventy-five groups stand identified across eighteen states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a number effectively frozen since 1993.
2. Current status: a population of the order of thirty lakh, with the worst indicators in the country — literacy well below the Scheduled Tribe average, high infant mortality, chronic undernutrition, and a heavy burden of malaria and sickle cell disease. Some are tiny and shrinking, such as the Great Andamanese, Onge and Shompen; others, such as the Sahariya and Baiga, are large and growing. Habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act have been recognised for only a handful, the Baiga of Dindori among them.
3. Nomenclature: called Primitive Tribal Groups until 2006, when the term was replaced because it implied an evolutionary ladder. The Xaxa Committee found the substitution cosmetic, since the criteria still turn on primitive technology and stagnant numbers, and the frozen list neither admits groups that now qualify nor removes those that no longer do.
4. Distribution: markedly uneven — Odisha has the largest number at thirteen, the undivided Andhra Pradesh twelve, Jharkhand nine, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands five, including the Sentinelese, while several states have one or none.

Conclusion
The category identifies real deprivation with an indefensible vocabulary and an unrevised list. Its value is that it forces attention to groups the Scheduled Tribe average conceals.