Asserting that the State government was spending every rupee for the welfare of the SCs and STs, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today strongly denied that Scheduled Castes (SCs) Sub-Plan funds were being diverted to other departments.
Replying to questions raised by Congress members Dr J Geetha Reddy, Thatiparthi Jeevan Reddy and SA Sampath Kumar on expenditure being incurred on the SCs development here on Friday in the Assembly during Question Hour, the Chief Minister said the State government enacted a law on development of SCs and STs. He also pointed out that the State government distributed pen drives containing details of expenditure in one lakh pages, to all members.
The Chief Minister said the State government allocated Rs 88,0071 crore under plan expenditure and spent Rs 33,462 crore till date. Stating that the government spent a lot on the development of SCs under plan expenditure, KCR said the government allocated Rs 14,375.13 crore and spent Rs 5,475.02 crore on SCs. He also said the government allocated Rs 8,165.87 crore and spent Rs 3,359.37 crore. The Chief Minister said his government will initiate action against officials concerned in case they neglected in spending the funds.
Criticizing Sampath Kumar and Dr J Geetha Reddy for stating that the funds were being diverted to other schemes, KCR said it was not correct on the part of the Congress MLAs to make baseless allegations against the government. He said it was a fact that the funds allocated to SCs were diverted to other departments during the previous Congress regime. He said while the previous Congress government spent only Rs 2,651 crore in 10 years, the TRS government spent Rs 6,713 crore in the last three-and-a-half years.
The Chief Minister also said the TRS government alone was giving Rs 20 lakh to the students pursuing studies in foreign countries under Ambedkar Overseas Scheme. The TRS government was also encouraging the Dalit entrepreneurship under TS-Pride scheme. He also informed that his government was giving 100 percent subsidy loans to the SCs in regard to agriculture schemes like drip irrigation and so on. The TRS government was confined to the development of the SCs and STs, he added.
Congress member Geetha Reddy said the ground level officials were not implementing the schemes meant for uplift of SCs. “At the top level, you are doing a good job. But at the bottom level, it is not up to the mark”, she said. (NSS)