The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Education only way to free people from untouchability, caste practices’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 03, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Education only way to free people from untouchability, caste practices’

Special Correspondent

Beneficiaries given sewing machines, cheques under safai karamchari rehabilitation scheme

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

BENEFITS: Governor Rameshwar Thakur and chairperson and managing director, National Safai Karamchari Finance and Development Corporation, New Delhi, Lalitha Kohli (third from left), with beneficiaries at a function in Bangalore on Wednesday.

BANGALORE: Governor Rameshwar Thakur on Wednesday advised safai karamcharis and their families to send their children to schools as that was the only way of emancipating them from untouchability and caste practices.

Mr. Thakur was addressing safai karamcharis and their families, who are mostly Dalits, after handing over to them sewing machines, cameras and cheques for starting manufacturing units and allotting STD booths under the Safai Karamcharis Rehabilitation and Women Development programmes. In all, assets worth Rs. 281.57 crore were distributed to them.

The function was organised by the State-owned Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Development Corporation Limited and the Rashtreeya Safai Karamcharis Financial and Development Corporation under the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

He wanted them to utilise the facilities provided to them and become part of the mainstream. Mr. Thakur said that 1,000 children from the families of safai karamcharis had been given educational facilities and it would be raised to 2,000 in the coming years. The Government, he said, had taken steps to provide Ashraya sites and houses under the Rajiv Gandhi Housing programme for these sections.

Social Justice and Empowerment Secretary, Union Government, Veena Chotre, said that 75 per cent of the funds meant for empowerment had been earmarked for women. The programme was being implemented, she added.

Dr. Chotre said that the Government and society could be happy only when all the facilities guaranteed under the various welfare measures initiated by the Union and the State Governments reached every safai karamchari household in the country.

Principal Secretary, Social Welfare, R.B. Agawane, and Secretary Subhash Chandra, Social Welfare Commissioner Baburao Mudabi and Bangalore Urban Deputy Commissioner M.A. Sadiq were present.

M.K. Baladeva Krishna, managing director of the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Development Corporation delivered the introductory speech.

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