No discussion on the education of Muslims in contemporary India can be complete without discussing the role of madrasas. A significant contribution of the 2006 Sachar Committee Report was its frank and illuminating discussion on the role of madrasas in the education of Muslims in India. The main issues that it dealt with and the solutions that it articulated are still relevant to any discussion on their role in a new education agenda for Indian Muslims.

Beginning with the Committee’s articulation of the significant position of madrasas in the life of Indian Muslims, and the suspicion that madrasas evoked, are concerns that continue to resonate a decade later after its Report’s publication:

“Madarsas, through which the Community ensures that its future generations aquire knowledge of Islam, have become a symbol of Muslim identity in India- – – Labeling of Madarsas as a den for terrorists is extremely worrisome for the Muslim community. Even though there has been no evidence to suggest that Madarsas are producing terrorists they are constantly under scrutiny. It has been pointed out that the existence of Madarsas (though not as a substitute for regular schools) is necessary for Muslims as, apart from providing basic education, they serve as an important instrument of identity maintenance for the Community”.

Prior to the publication of the Sachar Report, there was a growing controversy about the number of madrasas – estimates varied from a few thousand to sixty thousand. One of the major contributions of the Sachar Committee was to provide a corrective to the popular myths about the number of Muslims attending madrasas – “a persistent belief nurtured, in the absence of statistical data and evidence, is that Muslim parents have a preference for religious education leading to dependence on Madarsas”

In this connection, an important contribution of the Sachar Committee report to the madrasa debate was to highlight the distinction between maktabs and madrasas noting that the former are neighbourhood schools, often attached to mosques, that provide religious education to children who attend regular schools to get ‘mainstream’ education.

It noted that the common belief that a high proportion of Muslim children study in madrasas stems from the fact that they are actually enrolled in the local maktabs, and that only 4% of all Muslim school-going children attended madrasas. The latest official DISE data indicates that recognised and unrecognised madrasas had a total enrolment of about 25.5 lakh students which constituted about 7.7% of the total Muslim student enrolment of 3.3. crore in 2015-16.

The 2006 Sachar Committee Report and DISE 2015-16 data indicating that 4% and 7.7% of all Muslim school-going children attend madrasas are the best recent official estimates available. Since many private schools, including madrasas, are not included in official enrolment data, we may never be able to quantify accurately the number of children attending madrasas, and also distinguish them from those studying in part-time maktabs.

This is highlighted by a 2011-12 estimate of the National Monitoring Committee on Minorities’ Education indicating that 9.7% of Muslim children attend recognised and non-recognised madrasas. Though even official estimates vary, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of poor Muslim students receive their formal education in mainstream government, government aided and private schools.

Key Features of Madrasas in Contemporary India

Since their advent in India with the early Muslim rulers, madrasas have changed to face a number of challenges. The following features of contemporary madrasas are largely a result of developments and reforms undertaken in colonial and post-independence India:
 

• Since they offer free education and often free boarding facilities, as well as possible employment as imams and maulvis, most madrasa students belong to poor families. This was not the case in pre-colonial India, where upper class Muslims also attended madrasas, which was training for employment as scholars and administrators in the reigning dispensation. But this changed in colonial India as the madrasa links to employment in the state apparatus was broken.
• The changing socio-economic composition of madrasas, and other developments in colonial India, reversed the earlier emphasis on rational studies in favour of the study of the Hadith to eliminate syncretic tendencies in poor Muslims and transform them into pious, personally responsible Muslims. Contemporary madrasas continue to be caught in this perceived conflict between worldly knowledge and religious knowledge. This struggle is reflected in continuing debates over the religious and secular aims of madrasa education, the extent to which secular subjects should be incorporated in the curriculum, and also which of these subjects should be considered secular and appropriate for study.
• There are a wide variety of madrasas in contemporary India. Many are grouped under, or loosely associated, with different schools of thought, often ideologically hostile to each other, like the Deoband, Nadwatula, Ahi i Hadith and Barelvi schools. There is little or no connection between them – most follow their own syllabus and textbooks, and there is no uniformity even in the number of years required to obtain degrees or different levels of learning. Most madrasas teach up to the primary level or at the most to the secondary level.
• Suspicious of government funding, and reversing the precolonial trend of depending on state patronage, the financing of colonial madrasas began to solely depend on community funding. This lack of trust of government, and reliance on community funding continues in contemporary India.
• However not all madrasas have continued to refuse state financial assistance. Some states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Assam have constituted madrasa boards and have provided grants-in-aid to madrasas registered with them. In this growing number of registered madrasas, the curriculum include secular subjects and use state-prescribed or NCERT textbooks.
• Many more girls are now attending madrasas, including coeducational madrasas, despite the popular perception regarding Muslim parent’s hesitation in sending their girls to co-educational institutions”.

Post-independence madrasa reform /modernisation of madrasas

Like their colonial predecessors, new developments have made contemporary madrasas make changes mainly due to pressures from contending forces and groups from within the Muslim community to respond to the changing external environment. Broadly, the motivation to modernise madrasas can be characterised by two broad types of goals:
 

• Preparing the new generations of ulema to become more knowledgeable and socially aware community leaders.
• Improving the skills and knowledge of madrasa students required to cope with the challenges of education and employment in modern India.

The first major intervention of the Central Government was the MHRD scheme, Area Intensive and Madrasa Modernisation Programme of the Ministry, which focused on infrastructure and curriculum development and was implemented for a number of years. The Sachar Committee considered the scheme ineffective, and recommended that the scheme be reviewed, and revamped before embarking on its expansion.

While there have been some other government sponsored programmes, the next major intervention in the modernisation of madrasas was the MHRD centrally sponsored scheme, Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrasas (SPQEM). According to a 2018 NUEPA evaluation, SPQEM started during the XIth Five Year Plan in 2009-10 covered over 21,000 madrasas and was currently being implemented in 18 states in the country.

The two main objectives of the SPQEM are: a) to encourage Madarsas and Maktabs to introduce formal subjects i.e. Science, Mathematics, Social Studies, Hindi and English; b) to enable the children studying in Madarsas and Maktabs to achieve academic proficiency in classes I to XII.

This was to be achieved by providing for the following: salary of additional teachers, strengthening of libraries and book banks, providing teaching learning materials (TLMs) and other essential pedagogical equipment for teaching modern subjects at primary/middle/secondary and senior secondary levels.

While individual or some groups of private madrasas are also undergoing modernisation, it is the quality of the large-scale implementation of the SPQEM in many states of India which has the greatest relevance to understanding its role in the education of vulnerable Muslims in contemporary India. The following is based on the findings of a 2018 NUEPA evaluation report, and to a lesser extent an earlier 2013 evaluation conducted by the K. R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities, Jamia Millia Islamia.
 

1. The responses of the community, parents and madrasa staff and management were considerably enthusiastic about SPQEM because it combined religious and modern subjects thus serving both material and spiritual needs.
   2. The positive impact of the scheme included improvements in the enrolment of poor children and madrasa infrastructure. It also provided madrasa students a new opportunity to study modern subjects and thus allowing students to aspire to “becoming doctors or engineers or civil servants or police officers”.
2. Under the SPQEM scheme, the extent and coverage varies from state to state. Most madrasas focus mainly on elementary education and the coverage of higher levels of education is limited.
3. The 2013 evaluation observed that there was little clarity on SPQEM guidelines on eligibility of madrasas, which had resulted in a variety of implementation deficiencies. Among the more important consequences was the inclusion of ineligible institutions. Funded under SPQEM, many madrasas were being “run as essentially mainstream public schools” and in many others “the curriculum followed was hardly any different from that of any elementary school except one or two classes of Sunni theology each week.”
   Limited Teaching of Secular Subjects Both the 2013 and 2018 SPQEM evaluations had documented that untrained and unqualified teachers were teaching subjects like science, mathematics and English, and that teachers were appointed by individual madrasa managements, and not regulated by any authority.

Moreover, in many government funded madrasas, the science kit and the single computer provided was also not used by students. Moreover both students and teachers were using the conventional rote methods of teaching and learning used in teaching the Quran and Islamic subjects for the secular subjects such as science and social studies.

The teaching of secular subjects in other unrecognised madrasas is likely to be even more limited, since it is government SPQEM funding that has enabled many madrasas to provide both the teachers and learning resources to teach secular subjects. A 2015 report of a survey of 55 madrasas conducted in by Karnataka Students’ Islamic Organisation of India (SIOI) documented that less than half taught English, and less than 20% had access to science, mathematics and social science subjects.  Another study of 500 prominent madrassas across India revealed that 85 per cent of them did not teach Social Science, English and Mathematics to the students.

The Sachar Committee had recommended that mechanisms needed to be worked out to link madrasas with mainstream education and employment in 3 ways: madrasas could be connected to higher secondary boards so that madrasa students could shift to mainstream schools after completing madrasas; provision of “equivalence” to Madarsa certificates/degrees for subsequent admissions into institutions of higher level of education, especially when admission is done through a common entrance examinations; similar recognition of madrasa degrees to enable them to sit for competitive examinations for Civil Services, Banks and Defence Services.

There is no evaluation of the extent to which these mechanisms have been implemented, and have enabled madrasa students to access higher levels of education and employment. The 2018 NUEPA evaluation indicated that only a small number of students used the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) scheme to enable madrasa students to study at the secondary and upper secondary level, mainly due to lack of awareness of this facility.  However, despite any formal recognition of madrasa qualifications, transitioning from a madrasa to a mainstream institution at any stage of school or college education will pose adjustment and academic problems.

As Arshad Alam has noted that when students transition from the parallel stream of primary-level madrasas to continue their education in regular schools, they “will find it very hard to adjust to new educational and pedagogical context”.  This can become perhaps impossible for most madrasa students to cope with when they transition later at high school or higher education stages.

The language of classroom instruction can facilitate or limit entry into higher levels of school and college education. Like many other aspects of madrasa education in India, there is no empirical data available on the medium of instruction in these institutions. In 2002, Imtiaz Ahmad impressionistically observed that Urdu was the medium of instruction in North Indian madrasas.

It is unclear how many madrasas continue to teach in Urdu in the northern and other states of India. However, the educational mobility of Urdu medium students is blocked, as few high school and higher secondary schools use it the language of instruction, and even more limited is its use in higher education.

Imtiaz Ahmad also noted that in Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the medium of instruction was the regional languages. Madrasas registered under SPQEM are likely to be using the regional language, but the extent to which the regional language is used as a medium of instruction in madrasas is also likely to vary from state to state, and even and within states.

In Karnataka, the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIOI) study of 55 madrasas indicated that more than 50% did not offer Kannada as a subject.  Moreover, the study of Koran and related religious subjects in most madrasas would be in Arabic.

Therefore, even if government increasingly facilitates the recognition of madrasa degrees for entry into higher levels of school or higher education, many madrasa students immersed in religious instruction and secular subjects in other languages like Arabic and Urdu would find it far more difficult than regular students to cope with academic requirements when they transition to mainstream educational institutions.

There is only limited evidence, and no state or all-India level studies available, exploring the link between madrasas and employment. A study of 77 madrasas in Mewat district of Haryana, a Muslim majority district, enrolling about 8,000 poor Meo students indicated that 78% of the madrasa graduates were employed in madrasas, dargahs and mosques, and only a few went on to university education.

The study noted that only around three per cent of madrasa educated persons have attained a higher level of socio-economic development. Otherwise “most of them fell into the category of poor 58 socio-economic conditions as madarsa trained persons cannot bring any substantial socio-economic change because their professions cannot bring good remuneration”.

Confirming the popular perception that most madrasa graduates are mainly absorbed in low-paying jobs, and that their education restrict them from other forms of employment and social mobility, another observer of madrasa education in Karnataka has trenchantly articulated varied aspects of the negative impact of madras education on their graduates.

The evaluations of the SPQEM indicate that poor Muslim parents overwhelmingly support the SPQEM initiative primarily because it combines secular subjects with religious knowledge. This is also an important factor in sending girls to madrasas – there are more girls than boys in them. This imbalance is a direct consequence of the gendered world view of poor parents which privileges the main goal of school education as preparation of daughters to be good Muslim wives and mothers. However, while clearly the introduction of secular subjects in madrasas is absolutely critical in contemporary India, and is welcomed by poor Muslim communities they serve, the implementation of the SPQEM scheme is extremely deficient and needs to be reviewed thoroughly before expanding it.

Recruiting additional untrained and unqualified teachers by Madrasa Committees, and formally adding secular subjects and some resources -a single computer, a science kit which have rarely been used, and an arbitrary selection of library books – will not significantly improve the quality of teaching and learning in government funded madrasas.

The present Minister of Minority Affairs, Muktar Abbhas Naqvi has recently reaffirmed the present BJP Government’s commitment to modernise madrasas which included the training of teachers in secular subjects to connect their students to mainstream avenues of education. However, the mainstreaming of Indian madrasas requires large-scale qualitative and quantitative changes. There is no political will or public support for the quantum jump in financial and human resources that will be required to properly modernise madrasas in India, where Muslims are a disadvantaged minority.

Moreover, many community funded madrasas would stay away from such a scheme, and would oppose any possible large- scale government attempt to control what is taught in madrasas, viewing it as an unwarranted intrusion in their affairs.

Consequently, for the various reasons that have been already detailed, SPQEM and other such government schemes for modernising madrasas cannot be quantitatively expanded and improved to become an important parallel avenue for providing 12 years of quality education for poor and lower middle class Muslims, and provide them with the literacy, numeracy and critical thinking skills required to meet the challenges of 21st Century India.
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Read full report HERE

Courtesy: Counter View

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Action research study led by Jean Dreze in June 2019 indicates that only 8 percent of the beneficiary gets all the installments of central government’s maternity scheme

Ranchi: Jaya, a resident of Raidih, Gumla had applied in 2017 for Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandan Yojna (PMMVY). She had provided all the documents to the respective Anganwadi centre, but she did not receive a single installment.

Rani and Sweta of Shikaripara, Dumka faced a similar fate. They complaints registered at the Anganwadi also went in vain.

And same happened with Ganga of Peterwar, Bokaro, who had applied for PMMVY two years back but did not receive any installment.

The four women are among the 202 women from 42 gram panchayats, who had interacted with a team of social activists headed by renowned Development Economist Jean Dreze. The meeting took place in six blocks of Jharkhand’s five districts to know how well the PMMVY had been implemented in Jharkhand.

Under PMMVY, Rs 5000 is given to a pregnant woman, if she gets registered to an angawadi centre and delivers a child in any government hospital. The First installment is of Rs 1000 while second and third are of Rs 2000 each.
 

Jean Dreze told eNewsroom, “Pregnancy is a time of hardship and uncertainty for rural women, when their special needs for food, rest and health care get little attention. Maternity benefit is a legal right under the National Food Security Act. It can be of great help to them and their children. Alas, the PMMVY’s restricted coverage, reduced entitlements and bloated formalities have undermined this essential right.”

But a survey done by non-government organization (NGO) volunteers found that 76 per cent women, who had applied for PMMVY benefits, since it got implemented, did not receive any installment.

Only 24 per cent of the total women applicants of PMMVY received any installment. And only 8 per cent received all the three installments.

The survey’s report was presented today at Ranchi during a press conference.

The study also found that the National Food Security Act 2013 (NFSA) directs the central government to provide all pregnant women a maternity benefit of Rs 6000, unless they qualify for maternity benefits as formal-sector employees. After negating this responsibility for four years, the central government launched the PMMVY in 2017. The PMMVY provides for maternity benefits of Rs.5000 in three installments, but only for the first child.

And women have to fulfill conditions such as early registration of pregnancy, an ante-natal check-up, and immunisation of the child. They also have to fill a long application form at the local Anganwadi for each installment.

The entire PMMVY system runs on the shoulders of Anganwadi workers, but in Jharkhand, the workers have not been paid for many months, thereby directly affecting the scheme.

The team also submitted a letter to Amitabh Kaushal, Principal Secretary, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development and demanded that the PMMVY scheme to be universalized as it will only cost Rs 400 crore for the Jharkhand government, 0.5 percent of the state’s budget. It also demanded for transparent in its process for both information and payments. Also the need for the payment to be timely was also expressed. And also the scheme should also be well-publicized or advertised to let know the people about the scheme as most of the rural women are not even aware about it.

After the PC was over, economist Jean Dreze told eNewsroom, “Pregnancy is a time of hardship and uncertainty for rural women, when their special needs for food, rest and health care get little attention. Maternity benefit is a legal right under the National Food Security Act. It can be of great help to them and their children. Alas, the PMMVY’s restricted coverage, reduced entitlements and bloated formalities have undermined this essential right.”

Note: Names of the women have been changed.

First published in https://enewsroom.in/

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The ruling party has been known for self-laudatory praises on literally any occasion that it can get hold of. And when it comes to the Union Budget 2019, chances of this happening are even more. Former Union minister, JayantSinhasaid on Monday that the BJP brought the economy back on track and had transformed it from “Passenger train” to “Rajdhani train”. Congress MPs have used cricketing analogies to criticise the budget, saying, it’s a case of “unnecessary defensive strokes, dropped catches and was marred with no-balls instead of bold boundaries”. 
Year after year, some groups have been at the receiving end of these so called “dropped catches” and “no balls”.
 
Of India’s total population, as many as 25 percent belong to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). These groups have been out of the development paradigm of most governments, over decades. This continues even today. There is a need to understand the importance of adequate funding to bridge the development gap and the sub plans that were/are crucial to bridge the divide.

According to the 2017 multidimensional poverty index report, the poverty ratio was 41.30% for SC/ST groups in 2011. However, according to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the percentage of SCs classifying as below poverty line in rural areas was 31.5% in 2011-12, as against 15.5% of other communities. In urban areas in 2011-12, it was 21.7% versus 8.2% for other communities.

According to the Tendulkar Committee, the monthly per capita expenditure was Rs 1,252 in rural areas and Rs 2,028 in urban areas.

In order to unravel the Union budget and what it holds for marginalised communities, especially SCs and STs, the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) has come up with “Dalit Adivasi Budget Analysis 2019-20”. This exercise is an annual one. It looked at the budget at three levels: allocations, proportion of targeted schemes which directly benefit SCs and STs and budget credibility which measures the gap between approved budget and utilized budget. It noted that contrary to the slogan of “SabkaVishwas” (everyone’s trust) along with Sab kaVikas (Development for all), the budget reflected several “unparalleled declarations which needs to be demystified.”

The analysis predicted that if one places the figures allocated for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes and the number of schemes targeted in a background of extreme deprivation faced by these communities, the figures don’t go far in “addressing the development gap between the SC/ST and the rest of the population.”

In the budget, while Rs. 81341 crores has been allocated for the SCs, Rs. 52885 crores has been allocated for the STs. Number of schemes allocated for the former stands at 329 and at 338 for the latter. However, the report said that only 42% of the total schemes targeted for SCs and 40.8% for the STs will reach the communities respectively.

The NCDHR report draws attention to the grave issue of killing critical schemes by depleting them of funds. It says, “Another striking feature of 2019-20 budget is the systemic undermining of number of critical schemes by starving them of necessary funds”. For example, schemes like Post Matric Scholarship (PMS), University Grants Commission (UGC), Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour, National Fellowship for SC, KendriyaVidyalayaSanghathan, NavodayaVidyalayaSamiti, IGNOU Open University, Grants to Voluntary Organisations, land records modernization etc. which are few of the direct benefitting schemes that are denied necessary funds for SC & ST development.

Notably, the allocations for nodal ministries i.e. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has been significantly reduced compared to last year. Apart from this, the other critical Ministries which have witnessed steep declines in SC development are Rural development, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and Drinking water & sanitation. Similarly, from the ST perspective, the critical ministries are MSME and Drinking water & sanitation with substantial decrease.

There is marginal increase in allocations for the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA). The report noted that in a scenario where the overall increase in allocations are as high as 36% and 28% for SC & ST respectively, the nodal ministries of MSJE &MoTA are subjected to “major budget cuts” despite the existing NITI AAYOG guidelines for Earmarking of Funds for on implementation of SCSP/TSP.

The report busted the myth of budgetary allocation to a large number of schemes. It lamented, “Good schemes are starved of funds and irrelevant schemes’ allocations are increasing. This year, out of 329 schemes for SC, 233 schemes are non-targeted and without any comprehensive strategy to give benefits to the community. Similarly, only 71 out of 338 schemes for STs have the potential to give direct benefits, while the rest of them are general in nature.”

Income Support Scheme which is renamed as PradhanMantriKisanSammanNidhi with an allocation of Rs.12,450 Cr, SamagraShiksha with an allocation of Rs. 7264 Cr, National Rural Health Mission with allocation of Rs.6611.47 Cr all are general in nature. Here it also includes the obsolete schemes which are absolutely not relevant to the community. In the FY 2019-20 out of 52 major schemes there are 26 general schemes amounting to Rs. 69,065 Cr and 12 obsolete schemes amounting to Rs 8189 Cr.

Another highlight of the budget that the report pointed towards was the reduction in Post matric scholarships and funds for higher education. It noted, “It was disappointing to see that the allocation for PMS was reduced from Rs 3000 Cr in RE 2018-19 to Rs. 2926.82 Cr in FY 2019-20 for SCs and similarly, for STs it is reduced from Rs 1643.30 Cr in FY 2018-19 RE to Rs 1613.50 Cr in FY 2019-20.” The funds allocated for Higher Education for SCs and STs, have been shockingly reduced- UGC has reduced by 23.5 percent while IGNOU has reduced by 50 percent.
 
NCDHR’s report also pointed out that the UGC spends about 55% of its approved budgets to schemes for SC, STs. which is a gross violation of the Finance Ministry of SC, ST Budget guidelines issues. The report highlighted the curious phenomenon of allocation of funds in the name of marginalised groups, to sectors which have no relevance to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. For eg.the total allocation under the Depart. of Telecommunication for both SC and ST is a total of Rs.Cr. 2623.89 which is allocated for schemes like ‘optical fibre cable based network for Defence Services’, ‘Compensation to Service Providers’ which has no direct benefit to SCs or STs but only a general scheme.
 
Despite the threat of eviction to forest dwelling communities following a Supreme Court Order, ironically, Rs. 35 crores has been allocated to Tiger Project from the STC budget.
 
Atrocities against Dalits, especially women and youth have seen a spurt since the government came to power in 2014. The report analysed the fund allocation in this area. In FY 2018-19, a fund of Rs. 403.72 Cr was allocated and for the FY 2019-20, a fund of Rs. 530 Cr has been allocated under the Department of the Social Justice & Empowerment for the Strengthening of Machinery for Enforcement of Protection of Civil Rights Act 1995 and Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989. The report said that, “With clear evidences which are the proof of delay in delivering justice and increase in cases of crimes against the SC & ST, with low conviction rate, high pendency rate, limited number of Special Courts & Public Prosecutors it is essential for the state to not only allocate more funds but also fulfil the mandates provided under the Act, invest in mechanisms like establishment of Exclusive Special Courts & Exclusive Special Public Prosecutors that are necessary for strengthening & ensuring better implementation of PCR and PoA Act which act as a watershed for the Dalit Adivasi community”
 
On the grave issue of manual scavenging, an issue which has plagued the country even after so many years and several people continue to die, the report pointed out that the legislation for the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation, 2013 doesn’t take into account the cases, compensation and punishment in cases of sewer deaths.

Though the state local bodies such as EDMC, SDMC, NDMC, New Delhi Municipal Council etc. have reported zero sewer deaths in their reports. But the total number of deaths recorded by National Commission for SafaiKaramchari (NCSK), a body which has a mandate to conduct surveys and document data from all states, between 1993 to 2018, is as many as 676 deaths. On this serious matter, the report noted, “Despite the national legislation on prohibition & Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers, there are constant lapses in the fund allocation & its disbursal. An amount of Rs. 70 Cr was allocated in FY 2018-19 under the Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers however, this year Rs. 110 Cr has been allocated under this scheme. Funds allocated under the scheme continue to remain on the government documents and does not reach the beneficiaries. Data from RTI7 reveals that for the FY 2015- 16, Rs. 36 crore was allocated for manual scavengers’ rehabilitation was left unused, whereas for the year 2017-18, Rs. 24 crore remained unutilized, and not a single amount of money has been utilized until September 22, 2017.”

The report has recommended several measures on SC and ST budget policies. Some of these include but aren’t limited to, a legislative framework to bridge the gap between SC/STs and rest of the population and to ensure financial inclusion, sufficient Budgetary allocations for enabling community participation through Online Portals, direct benefits to SC/ST communities, increasing allocation of funds for “The Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS)” and to provide adequate schemes to ensure this practice is eliminated, release of unused funds and arrears in Higher Education, timely disbursement of Post-matric scholarship.” There is also a demand for adequate budgetary allocation to meet the demand from students of the SC and ST communities who would like to pursue higher education in universities abroad. Funds should also be allocated for high quality residential schools for SC & ST children, gender budgeting, child budget etc. says the report.
 
Read the complete report here:

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