With the announcement of calendar of events for holding elections to the Assembly, the Siddaramaiah government’s two major reports — the socio-economic survey, better known as the caste census and the House Committee report on the alleged violation of the framework agreement by the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) — were put into cold storage.
The caste census report was not made public at all, while the House Committee report was tabled in the Legislative Assembly and findings were made public.
The Backward Classes Department, which functions under the Social Welfare Ministry, conducted the the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), aimed at ranking the households based on socio-economic status and education status of various castes, among other factors. Nearly ₹200 crore has been spent on conducting the census.
A senior Minister told The Hindu that the caste census report contained a lot of data, which would be used while formulating welfare schemes, but did not reveal reasons for the government’s dithering.
An expert committee, headed by former Karnataka High Court judge Nagamohan Das, recently used the caste census data and recommended granting ‘minority religious’ tag for the Lingayat community. The socio-economic survey was conducted three years ago. The government has held back from releasing the findings on the grounds that its tabulations and data have many errors. A few days ago, Minister for Social Welfare H. Anjaneya even blamed the Backward Classes Department for errors and delays in submitting the report.
On NICE
The State government has not initiated action based on the recommendations of the House Committee report on NICE.
The panel has recommended a probe either by the CBI or Enforcement Directorate into the project and dropping of about 1,160 acres of both private and government land from the project. The project’s co-promoter Ashok Kheny joined the Congress and is likely to be chosen as its candidate from the Bidar South constituency.
