Denial by design

Published : Oct 19, 2007 00:00 IST

THE abysmal failure of the governments at the Centre and in the States to fully implement the Scheduled Castes Sub Plan has cost Dalits in India a whopping Rs.3,75,000 crore over a quarter century, according to Dalit activists. From its inception in 1980, the governments have been flouting almost all rules governing the Plans implementation with impunity.

Although it is imperative for the governments to allocate the Plan funds for every department/ministry in proportion to the Dalits share in the population, they have been throwing the percentage norm to the winds and ignoring the provision that every department/Ministry should make allocations to the Sub-Plan on the same percentage basis. Even a modest estimate will put the annual average of such denial at Rs.15,000 crore and hence the huge cumulative loss.

According to an estimate, in the 2007-2008 Annual Plan, the loss to Dalits isRs.20,280 crore. Of the total plan outlay of Rs.205,100 crore this year, only Rs.12,535.75 crore has been earmarked for Dalits.

Economists and social activists say that one of the reasons for the poor impact of the SCP strategy on the socio-economic conditions of Dalits is the failure of the officials to provide for Dalit-specific schemes such as educational empowerment that will serve their long-term interests. A study of engineering education in Tamil Nadu during the last two decades shows the extent of injustice done to Dalits through this budgetary discrimination and deprivation by the State. In the last 10 years, five lakh engineering graduates have passed out of the States colleges, a majority of which have come up in the last two decades. Of these five lakh engineers, the number of Dalits would hardly be 50,000. This figure could have been much higher if a Dalit-specific educational empowerment programme had been drawn up in keeping with the SCSP norm of allotting funds in proportion to the share of Dalits in the States population (19 per cent in the case of Tamil Nadu). Significantly, many Dalits selected for admission did not join engineering colleges simply because they could not afford to pay the exorbitant fees.

Dalit activists point out that the State government can still make amends for its past failures by filling up the over 20,000 unfilled engineering seats every year with Dalits and providing scholarships to cover their entire education and other expenditure under the Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP). This, they say, may cost not more than Rs.100 crore a year.

They point out that if such a scheme is introduced at the all-India level, seven lakh Dalits can take up higher studies. The colleges will also benefit by working to their full capacity.

S. Viswanathan
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