Pointing out that the budgetary allocation for the Scheduled Castes is far short of what is mandated under the Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member K. Varadharajan has written to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley requesting that 16.6 per cent of the Plan outlay be set aside for Dalits.
According to Mr. Varadharajan, the SCSP mandates that a proportion of the total Plan outlays of the Centre and State governments, equivalent to the population proportion of SCs at the national and State levels , be set aside annually for their development. Census 2011 has pegged the population of Scheduled Castes at 16.6 per cent of the total population and Dalits should have been allocated Rs. 92,183.45 crore, the letter says. Instead, the allocation is just half of this at Rs. 48,638.31 crore.
Pointing out that the SCSP has been violated by successive governments and funds meant for the SCs were being regularly diverted — including for construction of flyovers and the Commonwealth Games — the Polit Bureau member stressed the need for a law providing statutory status to the SCSP. Besides, the CPI(M) wants the government to ensure that funds allocated for the SCs should neither lapse nor be diverted.
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The SCSP was initiated some 35 years back to close the development gap between the SCs to ensure that adequate allocation was made for real needs and priorities.