Scheduled Castes scholarships cash-strapped

Upliftment of the economically weaker section of the society, especially those belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and other such communities, has been an unwavering commitment of successive governments at the Centre and the current NDA-led dispensation also promises to do the same. The stark reality is that the concerned social justice and empowerment ministry is cash-strapped to disburse funds to states for distribution of post-matric scholarships to SC community students.

According to sources privy to the development, the social justice ministry is battling with a backlog of two years i.e. 2014-15 and 2015-16, which runs into thousands of crores.

States like Tamil Nadu have been seeking the Centre’s share for disbursing the post-matric scholarships to SC students, but the funds have not been forthcoming, sources added.

While states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Bihar have the highest density of SC students, sources revealed that almost all the states across the country, where these scholarships are disbursed, are unanimous in their demand for arrears.

In fact, so severe is the cash crunch that the Union social justice and empowerment ministry has already used up almost 90 per cent of the funds allocated for the scheme in the Union Budget for 2016-17 for meeting the arrears of various states.

The revised estimate for the head titled “Welfare of SC/ST/OBCs” under which the post-matric scholarship scheme for Scheduled Castes students falls, was Rs 708 crore in 2015-16.

However, the budgetary allocation for this head in the 2016-17 Budget came down to Rs 591 crore.

Highly-placed sources said that most of the schemes of the social justice ministry are open-ended as the exact figures regarding the total number of SC, ST or OBC students and even adult beneficiaries (of other schemes of the ministry) are not known.

This impacts the budgeting of the ministry also, which remains limited.

In contrast, the budgetary allocation of the minority affairs ministry is larger as there the number of beneficiaries are clearly earmarked under various religious minority communities, sources informed.

Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalitha in December 2015 had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking Rs 1,500 crore from the Centre’s share to pay the arrears (amounting to two years) under the same scheme. This goes on to show the financial crunch being faced by the social justice ministry.

Official sources say that owing to open-endedness of the ministry’s schemes, requests to the finance ministry for greater fund allocation go unheeded, and the funds remain limited.

The objective of the post-matric scholarship scheme for SC students is to provide financial assistance to the SC students studying at post matriculation or post-secondary stage to enable them to complete their education.

Scholarships are paid to students whose parents/guardians’ income from all sources does not exceed Rs 2,50,000 per annum. The scheme is implemented by the states, which receive 100 per cent Central assistance from the Government of India for the total expenditure under the scheme, over and above their respective committed liability.