The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : No forceful eviction at Chengara: Balan

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No forceful eviction at Chengara: Balan

Special Correspondent

Better fund use by departments

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Minister for Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes A.K. Balan has said the government will not forcibly evict tribal people occupying land at Chengara in Pathanamthitta district.

Replying to questions at a press conference here on Friday, the Minister said those occupying land in different places, included persons who were ineligible for allocation of land by the government. However, the respective communities themselves would be eliminating them without any coercive action from the part of the government, he said.

Mr. Balan said the Scheduled Castes (SC) Development Department had spent Rs.230.57 crore out of its budget allocation of Rs.224.91 crore in 2007-08 (97.54 per cent). The Scheduled Tribes (ST) Department spent Rs.80.33 crore out of allocation of Rs.86.20 crore (93.19 per cent). This was a significant improvement over the previous years, he said.

Mr. Balan said the additional Central assistance for SC Development had been fully spent. Expenditure was 99.59 per cent in the ST Department. There was also improvement in the use of money given to local self-governments as grant in aid. However, some of them, especially in Malappuram district, had used only about half of the allocations. To correct this, about Rs.600 crore had been cut from the Plan allocations of the local self-governments for general purposes and routed for SC and ST Development.

He said that housing grants had been given to 22,000 SC and ST families after the present government came to power. More than 11,000 of those houses had already been completed. An amount of Rs.1 lakh each was being provided to tribal families who were allocated land at the Aralam farm. Comprehensive healthcare programme had been implemented for the tribes for the first time in the country. Various benefits to the SC/ST students were increased. Arrears in payment of electricity tariffs by tribal people were written off, he said.

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