30% funds for SC welfare: Capt Amarinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 14

The Punjab Government will spend at least 30 per cent of funds under all government schemes for the welfare of the state’s SC population.

Announcing this today, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh also took a host of other decisions for the uplift of the Dalit community, as a mark of homage to Dr BR Ambedkar.

Paying floral tributes to the architect of the Indian Constitution, Dr Ambedkar, on his 130th birth anniversary, at a virtual state-level event, the Chief Minister also announced filling the backlog of SC vacancies in all departments on priority, while promising to explore a post-matric overseas scholarship scheme for SC students, on the lines of the Baroda State Scholarship Scheme awarded under a scheme established by Sayajirao Gaekwad III.

The Chief Minister further announced a special Rs 500-crore Rural Link Roads project. The project will encompass construction of new link roads to the colonies of the Scheduled Castes and other poorer sections of society, which do not currently have road connectivity.

A special allocation of Rs 100 crore was proposed in 2021-22 for modernisation of villages having more than 50 per cent SC population, said the Chief Minister, adding this was aimed at providing further impetus to existing grants in the villages having SC population greater than or equal to 50 per cent of the total population.

Smart phones would be given to all Class XII SC students in government schools, while to motivate people to take up dairy farming, 150 village-level awareness camps would be conducted, with special emphasis on SC beneficiaries, he added.