Upliftment of poor and increasing social outreach of the backward classes will be top-most on the agenda of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. BJP Parliamentary Board member Thawar Chand Gehlot, who took charge of the Ministry on Tuesday, outlined his goal saying that his priority will be to “work for the poor.”
“Our department is committed to work for the social, economic and educational empowerment of Scheduled Castes, other backward classes, and persons with disabilities,” said Gehlot.
“Instead of blindly introducing new schemes, all efforts will be made for proper implementation of existing schemes. We will ensure that if there are any shortcomings in implementation of the current schemes, they will be attended to immediately,” he said.
Gehlot said that although there are a lot of schemes which are directed to benefit the poor, the problem lay in its implementation.
“Implementation of schemes has to be proper for the benefits to reach the people. We will start fixing accountability and we are sure that it will help it plugging the existing loopholes in the system,” he said.
The Minister said that one big challenge ahead of the Ministry was that despite money being channelled into States for the benefit of the Scheduled Castes and backward communities, they were not reaching the right hands.
“We have to ensure that the benefits reach where they are targeted. Our Government will work in tandem with other Ministries to create education infrastructure in villages and block to help in basic development and gowth,” said Gehlot.
He said that his department would also ensure implementation of schemes for senior citizen and schemes for drug prevention.