The Council of Ministers of Telangana led by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday gave its nod for making a new legislation on special development fund for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Sources said that the government has planned the new legislation to overcome the shortcomings in the law made by the previous Congress government – SC/ST Sub-Plans Act.
The new Bill is expected to be introduced both in the Assembly and Council on Wednesday.
The new Bill aims at improved accountability of the officials concerned who would be vested with powers to spend funds to be allocated to SCs and STs. It would have provisions to carry forward the unspent funds to the next year in addition to the allocation for that year and timely release of allocated funds.
The Cabinet is also understood to have cleared the amendments planned to the Bhoodan Trust Act and Payment of Salaries Act during its nearly two-hour meeting. The Council of Ministers, however, did not take up the bills for increasing reservation for minorities and tribal communities as expected as the necessary groundwork is not completed.
The Chief Minister told the Assembly recently that the bills would be introduced in the ongoing session itself.
The government had allocation Rs.14,375 crore for SC Development and Rs.8,166 crore for ST development in the recent budget estimates presented to the State Legislature.
