Rs 789 cr for Sc/St welfare schemes

Following the Planning Commission's stern warning, the Maharashtra government was forced to increase the allocation for departments related to Scheduled Caste (SCs) and Scheduled Tribe (STs) welfare by Rs 789 crore.

State finance ministry officials added that the provisions of this welfare scheme would not mean cuts in other schemes.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the state planning commission last week, chaired by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

In February, the Planning Commission had given the state government an annual outlay of Rs 14,829 crore and instructed it to make provisions for the welfare of SCs and STs according to their percentage in the population.

In April, the Planning Commission had sent notices to all state governments asking for details of provisions made by them in the annual Budget.

When it was found that Maharashtra had failed to do the needful, the commission wrote to the state government asking it to make the necessary changes before June 30.

In the state planning commission's meeting last week, it was decided to allocate Rs 392 crore to the social justice ministry and Rs 389 crore to the tribal development ministry.

A government official claimed that "Despite last year's deluge in Mumbai and other parts of the state, we didn't cut down the allocation of any department by a single rupee. This was made possible because of an unexpected rise in stamp duty collections due to the property market boom and we hope that we would not require to cut down provisions of any other department this year too," the official added.