In a bid to effectively implement a legislation enacted by Telangana Assembly for the welfare of the SCs and STs last month, the State Government has taken up an elaborate exercise of assessing the funds that would be available to spend on these sections till the year-end.
The Government has completed the assessment in respect of certain departments like Women and Child Welfare, Agriculture, Education and Panchayat Raj but the major portion of the work is scheduled this week.
The assessment will be wound up with the review of the SC and tribal departments on Saturday.
According to Mr. Rajiv Sharma, Chief Advisor to government, who is in-charge of the whole process, the objective was to arrive at actual figure of spending by year-end on the SCs and STs in proportion to their population. The effort was to identify the welfare schemes in each department and determine the money that should be spent.
There were hundreds of schemes, both Central and State, involving a huge sum of money which had to be spent on different sections of people for their welfare.
In the backdrop of enactment last month of Telangana State Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Special Development Fund (Planning, Allocation and Utilisation of Financial Resources) Act, the State Government was mandated to spend 15.45% of budget on the SCs and 9.08% on the STs as per their popualtion.
As there was no longer plan and non-plan expenditure in the budget from this year, the expenditure was included under establishment and development heads. So, how much money should be spent out of development expenditure on the basis of funds available for various schemes was being worked out. Mr. Sharma said that the objective was to spend money and extend benefits to the SCs and STs till the last person.
This was going to be a gigantic task. For instance, there were 30 lakh beneficiaries in Women and Child Welfare Department. The allotment must be made for the SCs and STs at 15.45% and 9.08% of overall schemes expenditure respectively.
