When the United Front Government was going full stream on its programme for infrastructure development, a seemingly innocuous legislation - the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) - was passed by Parliament during end-1996. The 73rd and 74th Amendments of the Constitution of 1992, which had introduced the three-tiered Panchayati Raj system in villages and urban settlements, had stopped short of the tribal areas listed in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. PESA was meant to extend the concept of devolution of power to areas notified for tribals.