The CPI(M) has urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to enact a legislation providing statutory status to the Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP). The party has asked Jaitley to allocate 16.6 per cent of the Plan Outlay for the SCSP.
In a letter to Jaitley, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member K Varadarajan said the Centre should ensure the allocated funds are spent for the development of Dalits and not diverted for other general purposes or let to lapse. There is an urgent need to enact a national level legislation to provide statutory backing to the provisions of the SCSP, he added.
The aim of the SCSP, started 35 years ago, is to ensure that adequate allocations are made and spent for the real needs and priorities of Dalits. It mandates the setting apart of a proportion of the total Plan Outlays of the Central and State Governments, equivalent to the population proportion of SCs at the national and state level, for their development.
Citing census figures, Varadarajan said SCs constitute 16.6 per cent of the nation’s total population. While 16.6 per cent of the total funds should have been allocated for Dalits in the interim budget presented in February 2014, the actual allocation was just 8.76 per cent.
Of the total budget of ₹17,63,214 crore, under the SCSP, the Centre should have allocated ₹92,183.45 crore. “But what actually was allocated is only ₹48,638.31 crore,” he said in the letter.
Urging the Finance Minister to rectify this anomaly, Varadarajan said the actual allocation in this budget is ₹50,548 crore and ₹32,387 crore for SCs and STs respectively.
“There also have been several glaring cases of diversion of SCSP funds for entirely different uses such as construction of flyovers, Commonwealth Games etc,” he said.