Marking the 125th birth anniversary of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattra on Thursday announced a slew of incentives for people belonging to Scheduled Castes communities including waiver of tuition fees for SC girls at graduation level.
He also announced increase in the dress allowance for SC students of Standard I—V to Rs 800 from Rs 400 per student per annum. “The rate of dress allowance from Std VI—X would be Rs 1000 per student per annum,” Mr Khattar added.
In addition, the grant for marriage of girls of widows belonging to Scheduled Castes would be increased from Rs 41,000 to Rs 51,000.
For ‘safai karamcharis’ who mostly belong to Schedule Caste communities, the Chief Minister announced that government would soon constitute a ‘Safai Karamchari Ayog’ and for karamcharis working in villages, two pairs of uniform and one pair of shoes will be provided to them like their counterparts in towns.
“The State government will also build concrete roads within one year in all those 843 villages where Scheduled Castes population is more than 40 per cent,” he said.
He said that Government will also provide upto Rs one crore loan to SC youth without guarantee for setting up small industries and for this purpose training would be imparted to SC youth.
The Chief Minister also laid the foundation stone of the first floor of Ambedkar Bhawan and announced a grant of Rs 21 lakh for its construction.
He also named the centrally-sponsored post metric scholarship for students belonging to Scheduled Castes and renamed the Skill Development University after Ambedkar.
Paying rich tributes to Ambedkar, Mr Khattar said that the “Father of Indian Constitution” was a “messiah of the downtrodden.”
Addressing a gathering here, Mr Khattar said that the backlog in government jobs for persons from reserved categories would soon be filled. - PTI
