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“Raje Govt. denying Dalits their due share in budget”

JAIPUR: Dalit activists in Rajasthan have taken strong exception to the Bharatiya Janata Party regime flouting the Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan’s provision for Budget allocation to Dalits in proportion to their percentage in the population. Budgets passed during the last four years in the State consistently deprived Dalits of their rightful share.

Speakers from all over the State at a Dalit budget workshop here on Monday pointed out that against the Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan’s stipulation of 17.2 per cent allocation for Dalits, only 2.5 per cent was allocated in the 2007-08 State budget. Of the total budgetary allocation of Rs.10,408 crore – which included revenue and capital expenditure – the Dalits received a paltry Rs.1,836 crore.

The daylong workshop was organised jointly by the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), Rajasthan Budget Study Centre and the Centre for Dalit Rights (CDR) to impress upon the State Government the need to make a just and equitable financial provision for the progress and welfare of Dalits in the coming State budget.

CDR chairperson and Supreme Court lawyer P.L. Mimroth said though the Special Component Plan had laid down that an allocation for Dalits could neither be allowed to lapse nor diverted to any other head, its benefits were not reaching the targeted groups in the absence of a monitoring mechanism.

“Three decades after the SC Sub-Plan was launched in 1979-80, the social and economic gulf between the higher castes and Dalits continues to expand. This will ultimately lead to anarchy and disarray in the society,” said Mr. Mimroth, adding that Dalits could not get social equality without their economic empowerment.

NCDHR national coordinator Paul Divakar said the labourers not getting minimum wages or a square meal were mostly Dalits. “Unless the budgetary discrimination ends, Dalits will continue to be at the lowest rung of the development ladder and face all kinds of humiliation, suffering and disgrace,” he said.

In a few startling figures presented in the workshop, the participants were apprised that 41.5 per cent of the Dalits in the State were living below the poverty line, 30.1 per cent of them had no access to formal education and their dropout rate before the completion of secondary education was as high as 49.5 per cent. Dalits are not able to get full advantage of reservation in jobs because of their educational backwardness.

Subroto Dutta, senior budget analyser of the Budget Study Centre, said the budgetary provision in 2007-08 for Dalits in the education sector was a meagre 0.45 per cent. The allocation in other spheres ranged between 0.23 per cent for water supply and 0.47 per cent for industries to 2.3 per cent for fisheries, while there were as many as 28 schemes in which no separate provision was made for Dalits.

In several instances, the allocation made for a specific scheme was not released in full, depriving the targeted sections of its benefits. The money allocated to a department was often taken away by another Government wing to offset its losses and on some occasions returned to the treasury without being spent.

The BJP MLA from Niwai, Heeralal Raigar, visibly embarrassed by the revelation of disquieting facts and figures, could only say that the elected representatives should put pressure on the State Government to abide by the Sub-Plan mandate and make adequate provision for Scheduled Castes.Institute of Development Studies director Surjit Singh said the BJP-led Government was not interested in making honest efforts for development of Dalits and was only holding pre-budget consultations with big industrialists.

Subodh Management Institute director Manchand Khandela said the neglect of Dalits was a “terrible outcome” of globalisation that had its roots in the exploitation of the weak.

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