After failing to bring in promotion quota for Dalits in Government jobs, the Centre is going all out to appease the community by ensuring that funds meant for their welfare are not diverted elsewhere.
The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has long been in tussle with the Planning Commission over Scheduled Caste Sub Plans funds. The Ministry has been arguing that the funds are not being channelised for Dalit welfare. “The Planning Commission may retain its role but in the 12th Plan document, we want to be made the appraisal and monitoring authority for the funds,” said a ministry official. “This will help proper targeting of schemes meant for Scheduled Caste populations,” he added.
The sub-plans make it obligatory for the government to earmark budget in proportion to the population of SCs and STs for the exclusive development of scheduled castes. This year, the annual allocation for the fund is over Rs 55,000 crore, which is 16.2 per cent of its plan expenditure of Rs 3,36,000 crore.
“The States are not using the funds for the SC welfare. Social Justice Minister Kumari Selja has written several letters to the respective head of states and also to the planning commission, which is so far the monitoring body for the funds but to no avail,” said a ministry official.
“Even the three ministries, which are supposed to earmark these funds towards the SCSP — ministry of rural development, ministry of tribal affairs and the ministry of development of north eastern region are repeatedly failing to meet their targets. Since the SC welfare is the mandate of our ministry we should be made the monitoring body for the funds,” said the official.
Planning Commission had constituted an inter-ministerial committee comprising of secretaries of planning commission, ministry of social justice and ministry of tribal affairs to “examine ways for effective implementation of sub-plans,” earlier this year. The committee has already met once and is expected to meet in the next two weeks to finalise the guidelines of use of SCSPs, such that there is no diversion of these funds.