Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore   

Centre keen on dalit welfare: Kumar

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE APRIL 14. The Union Minister for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, Ananth Kumar, today said that the Union Government led by A.B. Vajpayee had been implementing several welfare programmes to uplift dalits. He called upon the people from well-to-do sections to help remove the socio-economic backwardness of dalits.

Speaking after lighting a lamp to mark the inauguration of the 112th birth anniversary celebrations of B.R. Ambedkar at the BJP office here, Mr. Kumar said the process of development would accelerate only when all sections of the people were able to exercise their social and economic rights. Many disadvantaged groups were still denied equal status and justice in society. The NDA Government had launched a few programmes especially for the welfare of dalits, he said.

In the past, the Social Welfare Department used to formulate and implement policies for the welfare of dalits. But after the BJP came to power, the Prime Minister had created a separate Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to implement development programmes for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, he said.

The NDA Government had also implemented the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana to construct houses for dalits living in slums. Over 70 lakh houses would be constructed under the scheme, he said.

However, the living standards of the poor and the downtrodden would improve only when they directly received the benefits under the scheme. Wrong identification of beneficiaries would lead further exploitation of dalits, he said.

Many roads, national highways, airports, and ports had been constructed across the country with the labour contributed by the poor and disadvantaged groups over the years. Now it was the responsibility of the well-to-do sections to ensure that justice was done to them.

Recalling Ambedkar's contributions in the field of journalism, Mr. Kumar said the dalit leader had launched a newspaper, Mooka Nayaka (Silent Hero), in 1920 to create awareness among dalits about their rights. Unfortunately, even now, many poor people were unaware of their rights and privileges because they were illiterate, he said.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Jagadish Shettar, said dalits would get one more reserved Lok Sabha constituency and more Legislative Assembly constituencies in the State following the process of delimitation of constituencies. The delimitation process, initiated in 2001, would be completed soon, he said.

The President of the State unit of the BJP's SC/ST Morcha, D.S. Veerayya, criticised the Congress and said the previous Congress governments at the Centre were mainly responsible for the socio-economic backwardness of the dalits.

Earlier, Mr. Ananth Kumar garlanded the statue of Ambedkar near T.C.M. Rayan Road in Chickpet Assembly Constituency and participated in the Ambedkar Jayanti organised by the local BJP unit.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Krishna to inaugurate Bio 2003 today
• Protect quotas in colleges, Congmen. tell Govt.
• Centre keen on dalit welfare: Kumar
• `Interlinking of rivers no solution'
• Much `concern' over farmers being sidelined at biotech. meet
• Kharge seeks 23 p.c. quota for SCs, STs in State

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu