Govt to amend statute to help
SC, ST: PM
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Dec 5 — The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee today said proposals to amend the Constitution to relax the existing requirements and provide for speedy promotion of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes was under the consideration of the government.

Emphasising on his government’s commitment to protect the interests of the SC/ST employees, the Prime Minister said steps had already been taken to review the operational guidelines issued by the Ministry of Personnel regarding reservation in government jobs which, he said, had created discontent among the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

Mr Vajpayee, who inaugurated the three-day convention of SC/ST MPs here today, said the operational guidelines which were issued after certain pronouncements of the Supreme Court would not be allowed to stand in the way.

He said the proposals for constitutional amendments were at final stage of consideration to relax the existing requirements by prescribing lower qualifying marks and standards for promotion of the SC/ST employees.

Another amendment, he said, was aimed at clearing the backlog of jobs through special recruitment in respect of the SC/ST quota was also in the final stages of consideration.

Referring to a recent judgement of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court reiterating earlier orders regarding the principle of fixation of seniority on promotion of the SC and ST employees, Mr Vajpayee, said the government proposed to restore the seniority principle that was prevalent prior to these judgements.

Mr Vajpayee said the government had extended the provision for political reservation, one of the instruments provided in the Constitution to ensure equality for the SCs and the STs, to help remove deprivation through political empowerment.

The Prime Minister said something was lacking in the policies and programmes of the past 50 years as the development index of the SCs/STs left much to be desired despite vast allocations.

He said most of the SCs/STs continue to remain landless agricultural labourers and marginal farmers, high incidence of child labour and that untouchability was still in vogue in the rural areas.

Many of the problems faced by the SC/ST, he said, could be solved through education. "Literacy is a powerful instrument of reform and development. The first step towards this is universalising primary education,’’ Mr Vajpayee said adding that the government had already taken several initiatives in this regard.

Mr Vajpayee said it was time now to review the national forest policy so that tribal areas became distinct from that in non-tribal areas.

On scarcity of drinking water in the tribal areas, he said, one of the priorities of the government was to provide clean drinking water and announced that soon a strategy would be formulated and implemented in a time-bound manner.

The Prime Minister also announced that he would personally monitor the programme.

He stressed that both the Centre and the states could only play a proactive role in combating problems like malnutrition, diarrhoea among rural children, lack of immunisation and high rate of infant/child mortality among the SCs/STs.

The Prime Minister regretted that efforts to help the vulnerable sections among SCs engaged in scavenging had failed.

He said there was a need to have a "mission-mode approach’’ with the aim of abolishing the inhuman practice of carrying night soil as headload and simultaneously identify alternative occupation for them.

Urging each MP to adopt one village or town and join the government in the national task, he said, collectively all could work towards a new social order in the new century based on "samajik samata (social equality) and samajik samrasta (social harmony)".

In his address, the Union Law Minister, Mr Ram Jethmalani said the dream of establishing a social and political level-playing field could not be achieved yet due to poverty caused by economic mismanagement, corruption and social injustice.

The Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, Ms Maneka Gandhi impressed upon the need to review measures that had been taken so far for the uplift and development of the SC/ST. She suggested a holistic approach and apex authority to achieve social justice and equality in time-bound manner.

The Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Mr Juel Oram who also spoke stressed on self-employment of tribals through credit support.