The Hindu : More funds sought for welfare of Scheduled Castes, Tribes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 01, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

More funds sought for welfare of Scheduled Castes, Tribes

By Our Special Correspondent

GULBARGA, JAN. 31. The Dalit Sangharsha Samiti (Ambedkar group) has urged the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, who holds the Finance portfolio, to follow the example of the Maharashtra Government and allocate funds in the Budget for 2004-05 for the development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population.

The State convener of the DSS, Shivayogi Kollur, told presspersons here today that although the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes had increased to 22.5 per cent in the State as per the 2001 Census, the allocations for development programmes for these sections had remained at 18 per cent.

Mr. Kollur said the DSS had already submitted several memorandums to the Chief Minister in this regard and would submit one more memorandum to him during his visit to the district on Tuesday.

He urged the State Government to extend the ban on cultivation of paddy to the command area of the Bheema to prevent thousands of hectares of land in the command area lying fallow due to the unscientific use of water. The soil in the command area was not suited for water intensive crops such as paddy. The cultivation of paddy was also depriving of hundreds of villages of drinking water.

He said hundreds of hectares of fertile land on the banks of the Bheema had been purchased by Andhra Pradesh-based farmers. Besides banning the purchase of land by Andhra Pradesh farmers as was done in the case of Upper Krishna Project, the Government should ban the cultivation of paddy in the Bheema command area also. He said the Government should immediately destroy the paddy nurseries to dissuade the farmers from taking cultivating paddy. He warned that if the Government failed to do this, DSS volunteers would initiate direct action to destroy the paddy crop in the command area of the Bheema.

Mr Kollur said that the chemical fertilizers used in the paddy fields were polluting the river and the people living on the banks of the river who used the water had developed various health problems.

He also wanted the Government to totally ban the sale of toddy in the State. Due to the lack of enough palm trees to tap toddy, contractors were using a mixture of poisonous chemicals to prepare toddy and this was having a telling effect on the health of those who drank it, he added.

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