Firing a fresh salvo at Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Uttarakhand BJP said the State Government has been siphoning off the Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe Development Fund with impunity. The charge has come at a time when the CM is trying to rally the SC and ST category people behind his party by using the recent election of a Dalit to the Upper House of the Parliament. Raising this allegation, BJP’s chief spokesperson Munna Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday that the Government funds to the tune of crores meant to better the living of the weaker sections of the society are being squandered away by the State Government with connivance from the CM who is presently holding the social welfare ministry . “Things are scary. In the financial year 2015-16, the government has misused Rs 71 crore that belongs to the development fund of SC and ST people,” he said, adding that the siphoning spree has exposed the real face of anti-Dalit Rawat with the façade of being the custodian of their interests falling off.
“This is the reason why the Centre did not allocate fund in this financial year as the state government has failed to submit utilisation certificate (UC) of the earlier sanctioned funds under Centrally- sponsored schemes,” Chouhan said.
Invoking the act passed in the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha in 2013- known as SC/ST sub plan ( planning, allocation and utilization) 2013- to stop funds meant for them from being misused, the BJP leader said the act mentions that if anyone is found misusing special component plant (SCP) and tribal special fund (TSF) the government should lodge criminal cases against them. “They created a committee at the state and the district levels. They also appointed the district magistrate as the head of the monitoring committee of SCP and TSP. But money is being spirited away with no accountability being fixed ,” he said
“On the one hand, CM Rawat is posing as a protector of the Dalit interests he, on the other, is allowing their welfare funds to be blatantly misused and misappropriated,” he said.
“The CM is fully accountable for the misappropriation of SC/ ST development funds as he has been running the Social Welfare Ministry following the demise of the Social Welfare Minister Surendra Rakesh,” Chouhan said.
He further said that the state government had earmarked that projects upto Rs 50 lakh would be implemented at district level. “The projects are to be firmed up in the open meeting held at the level of the gram Sabha. They will fix the project for the villages which are having 30 per cent population from SC/ST. The certificates are to be issued by the department director. But these norms are not being followed by the state government currently. Now the funds are being allocated on the recommendation of Chief Minister’s OSD Rajiv Jain and PRO Khazan Das Dhami,” he said.
Further buttressing his claim, Chouhan said that the rule of business was enacted by the UP government in 1975. “The same is being followed here even now. It clearly mentions the division of business. Significantly, the additional chief secretary S Raju has mentioned in his note that the fund solely meant for the development of SC/ST dominated localities cannot be diverted to spheres other than that. However, he said in the same breath that the CM has his discretionary power. And before that they are helpless, he said, clearing thus at whose behest things are now going on,” the BJP leader said.