The Congress, TDP and CPI (M) staged a walk-out from the Assembly on Friday, minutes before the House was adjourned for the day, protesting against not getting any commitment from the government on the issues pertaining to the implementation of SC, ST Sub-Plans.
The decision by the three opposition parties came after a four-and-half hours short discussion on “SC, ST Sub-Plans and economic support schemes implemented for their welfare”.
The three parties protested the government’s “failure to adopt the Andhra Pradesh SCs and STs Sub-Plans (Planning, Allocation and Utilisation of Resources) Act like other Acts were adopted, not framing rules for its implementation, violating the provisions of the Act and not giving a time-frame for implementing the three-acre land scheme to all landless Dalit (SCs) families”.
Changes in law
Minister for SC Development G. Jagadish Reddy stated that the present Telangana Government was far ahead of other previous governments in uplift of SCs by implementing various welfare and development programmes and the statistics about the expenditure before formation of Telangana and after were an ample proof. He also announced that the government was planning to bring some changes to the Act, made by the previous government, during the budget session of the Assembly.
The Government, however, agreed to the suggestions of the opposition parties to convene SC legislators’ meeting every three months on the implementation of SC, ST Sub-Plans, to constitute advisory committees of SC and ST legislators and also leading an all-party delegation to the Centre to press for categorisation of Scheduled Castes. The opposition parties also protested absence of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao during the reply to the discussion stating that he was there for almost all other short discussions.
Time frame
Deputy Floor Leader of Congress M. Bhatti Vikramarka, who initiated the discussion, sought to know from the government as to how long it would take it cover all landless SC families under the 3-acre land scheme if the pace of implementation was distributing land at abut 3,800 acres per year as being claimed by the government. “It will take 100 to 150 years to ever cover about 7 lakh landless SC families as per SERP data”, he noted. The Minister said the scheme was not about how many families were covered every year but how best they were uplifted socially and economically by providing all necessary help. Eight other members from TRS, BJP, MIM, TDP, Congress and CPI (M) also spoke.
