Government deprives Dalits and tribals of ₹2.68 lakh crore

In the last four years, the allocation for the Special Component Plan and the Tribal Sub Plan went down by a whopping ₹2.68 lakh Crore. Will Arun Jaitley’s fifth budget be any different?

PTI
PTI
user

Bhasha Singh

The Union Government has deprived the Scheduled Caste population of a whopping ₹1,88,976 crore during the last four years. During the same period, the Government deprived the tribal population of ₹79,024 crore.

This is the money they should have received in addition to what they were actually allocated in union budgets from 2014-15 to 2017-2018 under the Special Component Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub-plan (TSP).

The erstwhile Planning Commission had earmarked 16.6% of the plan budget to the SCP and 8.6% of the plan budget to the TSP.

Not only were the Dalits and tribals deprived of their due but the allocations meant for their specific needs were diverted to centrally sponsored schemes like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan etc.

Dalit and tribal organisations point out that the whole idea of the SCP and the TSP was to address special needs of the two groups and not club them with general schemes. But by diverting the money to centrally sponsored general schemes, the purpose of special planning was being defeated.

Three Members of Parliament associated with BJD, namely BJ Panda, Rita Tarai and Dilip Tirkey had raised this issue in Parliament last year. They then complained that the Union Government had not released funds for post-matric scholarship meant for Dalits and tribal students.

The Parliament was then informed that in the previous two years (2015-17) around ₹8,000 crore had not been released by the Centre to the state governments for disbursing post matric scholarship.

CPI leader and MP D Raja also alleged that the present government is deliberately denying the legitimate dues of Dalits and tribals. As it is, he pointed out, the allocations are low for the SC/ST population comprising almost a quarter of the country’s total population.

There is growing resentment among Dalits and tribals that Modi government is in complete denial mode of economic benefits. The leading organisation which has been fighting a tough battle for these entitlements is Dalit Arthik Andolan and Swadikar. Paul Divakar, secretary of Dalit Arthik Andolan and Swadikar told NH that the last four years have been very tough as against 16.6% of total outlay Dalits have received just about 8.9% of the plan budget. Tribals similarly received just about 5.63% and not 8.6% of the plan budget that they were entitled to.

Swadhikar
Swadhikar
Allocation under the GBS

Central and state governments have been diverting even this meagre amount for prisons, police welfare (Odisha government), electricity management (Delhi government), Swachch Bharat Mission, Pradan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojna, EPF, UGC etc.

A Dalit human rights activist Beena maintained that although the central government has launched a scheme under which monitoring of all schemes can be done on paper, diversions are institutionalised so much that it is difficult to get economic justice for Dalits and adivasis.

Will the budget for 2018-19 also follow this beaten track?

Swadhikar
Swadhikar
Allocation for SCs and STs

Follow us on: Facebook, Twitter, Google News, Instagram 

Join our official telegram channel (@nationalherald) and stay updated with the latest headlines