Meeting of Consultative Committee of Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment Held The Meeting of Consultative Committee of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment held here today under the chairmanship of Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment. Ministers of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar, Shri Ramdas Athawale, and Shri Vijay Sampla were present in the meeting. Agenda of the Meeting was Allocation for the Welfare of Schedule Castes and Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana. Addressing on the occasion, Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot said that all the States/Ministries/Departments earmark funds under Allocation for the welfare of Schedule Castes (formerly Schedule Caste Sub Plan) out of their Plan outlay, in proportion to the percentage of Schedule caste population as per the consolidated guidelines of SCSP issued by Planning Commission. M/o Social Justice and Empowerment has been entrusted to monitor its implementation. Referring to Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana", Shri Gehlot said that this new Central sector scheme has been formulated in pursuance of the Budget 2015-16 announcement and is 100% funded by the Central government. This scheme aims at providing Senior citizens, belonging to BPL category and suffering from any of the age related disability/infirmity viz. Low vision, Hearing impairment, Loss of teeth and locomotor disability, with such assisted-living devices which can restore near normalcy in their bodily functions, overcoming the disability/infirmity manifested. This scheme first of its kind in the country, is expected to benefit 5,20,000 senior citizens over a period of three years. These devices will distributed free of cost in Camp mode. It will be launched on 1st April, 2017 in District Nellore in Andhra Pradesh followed by on 8th April, 2017 in Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. Members of Parliament who took part in the meeting included ; Shri Hariom Singh Rathor, Dr. (Smt.) Mamtaz Sanghamita, Shri Vinod Chavda and Shri Virender Kashyap (All Lok Sabha); and Shri K. Somaprasad (Rajya Sabha). Secretary, M/o SJE Smt. Latha Krishna Rao and senior officers of M/o SJ&E were also present in the Meeting.