Telangana Govt. Spends 30,000 Cr On SC/ST Welfare

In order to empower SCs and STs economically, the State government had implemented several schemes worth a whopping Rs. 30,000 crores for their welfare, SC & ST Welfare Minister G Jagadish Reddy told the Telangana Assembly today.

The Minister said that as many as 33 welfare schemes for the cause of the deprived sections were being implemented across the State ever since the TRS rose to power.

"Unless we wipe out misery and poverty among these classes, we cannot expect the State to develop," he cautioned members during a short discussion on the SC and ST Sub-Plans in the House.

He took potshots at the previous governments for using them only as Vote Bank and neglecting their welfare for over seven decades. The Congress and TDP regimes ruled for long and did nothing for the dalits, SCs or STs, he claimed. Those communities were still lagging in education, social, politics and other spheres, he said expressing his anguish.

Reddy claimed that the government had spent Rs. 380 crores on subsidies to backward. While it was 60% subsidy for Rs. 1 lakh, the cap was raised to Rs. 5 lakhs by implementing the scheme, and benefited 32,041 SCs and 14,732 STs. Reserving 319 posts for SCs and 38 for STs in Sanskriti Sarathi was another of the government's initiatives for the deprived, he pointed out.

He also added that the TRS government had given special benefits to 51,288 SC girls and 28,839 ST girls through Kalyana Lakshmi so far.