The Directorate of Tribal Welfare was bifurcated from the erstwhile Directorate of Adi Dravidar and Tribal with effect from 01.04.2000 exclusively for the welfare of tribal people. It is functioning as a independent unit having full powers in terms of administration and finance towards the subjects pertaining to tribal welfare as ordered in G.O. (Ms.) No.56, Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare (ADW1) Department, Dated: 28.08.2017 and functioning independently from 1.04.2018 vide government letter Letter (Ms) No. 15/3216/ADW-1/2018-2, dated: 27.02.2018.
Various innovative schemes are implemented by this department for developing and bringing the tribal on par with the social, economic and educational status of the State. The Government of Tamil Nadu is paying special attention for the development of triabl people in 18 districts i.e. Salem, Thiruvannamalai, Villupuram, Vellore, Dharmapuri, Namakkal, Thiruvallur, kancheepuram, the Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Krishnagiri, Erode, Thiruchirappali, Cuddalore, Madurai, Ariyalur, Tirunelveli and Chennai.
Poor living conditions, lack of basic amenities in hilly terrains, nutritional deficiencies, high drop-out rate in schools, low literacy rate and migration due to degradation of forest resources are the major problems faced by tribal people.
The prime objective of the Government is overall improvement and development of the Tribes in the fields of education, health and sanitation and to improve the infrastructure facilities in tribal habitations like provision of drinking water, link roads to the villages and construction of houses. This will lead to socio economic upliftement of the Scheduled tribal and thus reduce the gap between the tribal and non-tribal population.