Central ministries told to earmark funds for SCs

The Planning Commission has issued new guidelines to central ministries asking them to earmark 15 per cent and 7.5 per cent of their annual plan for the scheduled castes and tribal sub-plans respectively.

The notifications have been sent to the Union ministries days before they are due for submitting their annual plan proposals and a year after the Planning Commission sent revised guidelines to the state governments.

Asked about the delay, Planning Commission member B Mungekar said there was considerable resistance from ministries as they considered resources for some programmes as divisible and others as indivisible.

However, the Commission has now suggested that each central ministry earmark funds for the two sub plans, reflecting the percentage of the population of these socially disadvantaged groups, he said.

Mungekar said that the plan proposals of the ministries would be rejected if they are not accompanied by sub plans for STs and SCs.

"The tribal sub plan, which started in 1973, and the Special Component Plan for SC, which started in 1980, have done little to improve the lot of SCs ad STs," Mungekar, who was a member of the Moily committee on reservations for OBCs in higher education, said.

If a ministry has a budget demand of Rs 1,000 crore, it has to have a separate Rs 150 crore proposal for SCs and a Rs 75 crore plan for STs.

"And the programmes most suited to the needs of these categories should be then allocated these funds rather than having a 15 per cent allocation on paper in a road project which is meant for common use," Mungekar explained.

The PM had expressed his concern over the inefficacy of these strategies recently and had said that the benefits were not reaching the target groups.