NALSA SAMVAD Scheme, 2025 seeks to improve legal awareness, outreach and delivery of legal services by adopting a community-based outreach-driven approach
NALSA SAMVAD Scheme, 2025 seeks to improve legal awareness, outreach and delivery of legal services by adopting a community-based outreach-driven approach
The NALSA SAMVAD (Strengthening Access to Justice for Marginalized, Vulnerable Adivasis and Denotified/Nomadic Tribes) Scheme, 2025, launched by National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) in April 2025, has been formulated to ensure effective access to justice for Scheduled Tribes (STs), Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), and De-Notified/ Nomadic Tribes (DNTs) who face systemic barriers in accessing legal remedies and welfare entitlements.
The Scheme provides for the creation of dedicated SAMVAD Units at the District level, identification of tribal communities in each Taluk, preparation of annual action plans, deployment of trained panel lawyers and para-legal volunteers from tribal areas, and provision of legal assistance in matters relating to land and forest rights, displacement, rehabilitation, documentation, welfare schemes, and social security.
The NALSA SAMVAD Scheme, 2025 seeks to improve legal awareness, outreach and delivery of legal services for Vulnerable Adivasi and Denotified/Nomadic communities by adopting a community-based outreach-driven approach to improve legal awareness and delivery of services in remote and tribal areas. SAMVAD Units conduct legal awareness programmes in tribal habitations, door-to-door outreach, legal literacy sessions in local languages, legal services camps, and coordination with Gram Sabhas and local institutions.
The Scheme also focuses on early legal intervention, assistance in documentation and entitlement claims, and facilitation of access to government welfare schemes, thereby ensuring last-mile delivery of legal services in culturally sensitive and geographically inaccessible areas.
690 SAMVAD Units have been constituted at the district level. This has enabled nationwide institutional coverage of the Scheme through State and District Legal Services Authorities.
The Scheme provides a structured monitoring and reporting framework under which quarterly reports are submitted by Taluk Legal Services Committees, District Legal Services Authorities, and State Legal Services Authorities in standardized formats prescribed under the Scheme. These reports are consolidated and reviewed by NALSA at the national level to ensure uniform implementation and accountability. NALSA has also issued a revised roadmap for consolidated biennial reports from all State Legal Services Authorities.
This information was given by MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE; AND MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.