The Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment took a meeting with the officials of Social Justice Department on the day. He said that a total of 244 cases of atrocities on dalits have been registered in Uttarakhand in last three years. The Minister was told by the officials that there is not even a single manual scavenger in the state while in the year 2013-14, there were 137 persons involved in manual scavenging. He said that the inter caste and inter religion marriages should be promoted to increase social harmony. In Uttarakhand 36 inter caste and three inter religion marriages were registered last year. The minister informed that there are 1.20 lakh specially –abled persons in Uttarakhand and a pension of Rs 1000 per month is provided to the 72302 such persons.