HYDERABAD : Claims of the Government on presenting a `dream budget' notwithstanding, several organisations working for the cause of dalits alleged that the Government has meted out `severe injustice' to them by cutting down the allocations to welfare sector.

Though the budget projected the allocation for scheduled castes to be Rs. 1,537 crores, it comprised a Rs. 500-crore Indiramma component bringing down the effective allocation to Rs. 1,037 crores. When compared with Rs. 983 crores allocated in the last fiscal, the increase in the social welfare budget was less than 10 per cent.

Population criterion

Addressing a press conference here, representatives of Centre for Dalit Studies (CDS), Dalit Bahujana Front, Republican Party of India and others said the actual allocation for SCs should have been around Rs. 3,730 crores in proportion with their population.

However, the Government failed to live up to the expectations yet again by allocating a mere Rs. 631 crores under the plan.

CDS representative Mallepalli Lakshmaiah said a large chunk of funds allocated under the special component plan were being diverted to other purposes. To rectify this, the Government should bring all the schemes related to SC welfare under plan and implement the schemes taking family as a unit.

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