Union budget: Dalits, tribals "denied" 57% per cent of their share

In one the sharpest critiques of the new Union budget, a top apex body of India’s Dalit organizations, National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), has accused the Government of India of denying Dalits 61 percent of the share they should have been allocated under the scheduled caste sub-plan (SCSP), 53 per cent of the share tribals should have been allocated under the scheduled tribe sub-plan (TSP).
Pointing out that the total denial to both SCs and STs is a “shocking” 57 per cent, Paul Divakar, who is NCDHR’s general secretary, has said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to whip the budget into shape and make the economy fairer for Dalits, tribals and other marginalized sections, but unfortunately his words have not translated into action.”
Giving details, the NCDHR has said, in the budget for 2015-16, the Dalits have been allocated Rs 30,850 crore, while the allocation is Rs 19,980 crore for Adivasis. “As per the SCSP/TSP Guidelines, the SCs should be allocated 16.6 per cent of the outlay, which amounts to Rs 77,236 crore towards SCSP, and the STs should be allocated 8.6 per cent of the outlay, which amounts to Rs 40,014 crore towards TSP”, it added.
“Dalits, therefore, have been denied a total of 61 per cent of the due amount under the SCSP, and 53 per cent has been denied to tribals under TSP”, it said, adding, “When compared to 2014-15 allocations , SCSP allocation was Rs 43,208 crore and TSP allocation was Rs 26,714 crore.” It terms this year’s allocation as “anti-SC and anti-ST.”

The NCDHR further says, “From the gender perspective, the Budget spells doom for SC/ST women”, as it earmarks practically “nothing” for them. “Out of the total allocation of Rs 30,850 crore under the SCSP, the allocation for women specific schemes is a meager sum of Rs 73.70 crore – which amounts to 0.23 per cent only!” it adds, “The scenario is much the same when one looks at the Budget allocation under TSP -- a paltry sum of Rs 40 crore ie 0.20 per cent.”
According to NCDHR , the allocations have “also declined in the education sector” to Rs 10,194.7 crore under the SCSP and Rs 5486.44 crore under TSP. Further, “allocation in the critical post-matric scholarship scheme for SC/STs has been reduced from Rs 1,904.78 crore to Rs 1,599 crore.”
Saying that the Modi government has actually “missed the boat to reach out to the Dalits and Adivasis”, the NCDHR concludes, “hough this Budget could have been used to give real relief to struggling families facing assaults, atrocities, discrimination, poor health, lack of education and unemployment, no concrete measure has been taken to improve their condition.”
“It is not only ironic but a cruel stroke that the government, instead of protecting SCs and STs and promoting their development has grossly reduced spending on their welfare”, the NCDHR statement said, wondering, “Where is the money going? The answer is not far to seek – it is going to the corporates with a reduction in corporate tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent.”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog