The Odisha SC/ST Budget Monitoring Committee, a body of Dalit people working for their betterment, on Friday demanded that the State Government enact Special Component Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) legislation in the line of that in Andhra Pradesh for real development of the SC and ST people who constitute 40 per cent of the State’s population.
Staging a demonstration here, committee member Adhikar Singh said, “last year, the Andhra Pradesh Government has made the SCP & TSP legislation to ensure real development of SC/ST communities. Similarly, Karnataka and Rajasthan are in the same process to pass their Bills,” he said.
Singh said, “Considering the low level of development among SC & ST communities, the Union Government had introduced TSP for ST and SCP for SC in 1974. The objective of this policy is to reduce poverty and unemployment substantially through individual family and hamlet level development through non-divertable and non-lapsable budgetary provision having some basket of innovative area-oriented schemes. But over the years, a huge amount of funds is diverted to other purposes that are hardly beneficial to these two communities.”
Despite our several appeals at various forums, nothing has changed as yet, rued another committee member, Jugal Kishore Ranjit.
“Recently, the Andhra Pradesh Government has introduced new higher education schemes for Dalit children for studies abroad under the SCP budget and allocated funds for 15 children every year to give them a global-level quality education. Hence, we strongly demand that our State Government also introduce a similar kind of schemes for tribal and Dalit children,” said Ranjit.
The committee too submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister through the Governor to this effect.