UNI
New Delhi, May 26: Stressing that affirmative actions for educational and social advancement of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs) have been in its focus during the two years of the UPA Government, the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry has said it is consulting experts on legal aspects of introducing reservation for these classes in private sector jobs.
This issue remained high on Ministry's agenda and it initiated consultation with national and regional associations of trade and industry in this regard, it said.
Though a result of these efforts had been the acceptance by industry the need for affirmative action by way of skill building as well as acknowledging that merit is also shaped by social circumstances, the Government was also in consultation with legal experts on introducing reservation, the Ministry said in a report on its two years of its working.
This will be in consonance with the commitments made in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) in this regard.
For the educational and social development of the Scheduled Castes, an expenditure of Rs 2104.73 crore was incurred during the last two years, which is again an increase of Rs 435.84 crore over the first two years of the Xth Plan period.
Under the Post Matric Scholarship Scheme for the Scheduled Castes, 49 lakh students have been awarded scholarships worth Rs 1020.23 crore and the expenditure under the Scheme has been raised from Rs 264.99 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 548.10 crore in 2005-06, an increase of 106 per cent over the period of two years.
As many as 11.49 lakh SC children of those engaged in unclean occupation have been provided with Pre-Matric Scholarship worth Rs 20.68 crore. For the Construction of hostels for Scheduled Castes boys and girls studying in middle school, higher secondary school, colleges and universities, Rs 93.21 crore were released benefiting 25,811 students during the last two years.
A new scheme, Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship, has been introduced to provide scholarships to SC students pursuing higher studies in M. Phil and PhD courses. A total 1,333 fellowships per year are being awarded from the year 2005-06 itself on the pattern of UGC fellowships.
For the award of fellowships of National Eligibility Test (NE) examination conducted by UGC and CSIR has not been made mandatory and the fellowships offered by the Ministry will be allocated directly to various Universities, subject-wise.
The fellowships under this scheme will be awarded for a period of five years of which, two years will be for the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) at Rs. 8000 per month and for remaining three years as Senior Fellowship (SRF) at Rs. 9000 per month.
The scheme of National Overseas Scholarship for candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes for pursuing higher studies and research programmes in Engineering, Science and Technology has been extended till 2007.
The rates of annual maintenance allowance and enhancement of the family income ceiling have also been enhanced and 20 SC students have been selected for award during the year 2005-06.
The Ministry has also introduced Call Centre Training under the scheme of Coaching and Allied Assistance for SC & OBC. Two major IT institutes, NIIT Ltd. and APPTECH Ltd, have been entrusted the job of providing free training in English language speech, accounting, computer familiarisation and personality development.
The training will benefit 2880 SC students annually.
Another new scheme of TOP class education for SC students, which will benefit 1250 students, has been formulated. One hundred and twenty top class institutions in the field of management, engineering, medicine, including dentistry, law, information technology and other specialised streams, have been identified for this scheme.
Also, the Prime Minister constituted a Committee of Ministers on Dalit Affairs headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee with Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry as the nodal ministry. The Mandate of the Committee is to identify the gaps in the existing schemes and help develop new programmes for eliminating the gaps, the report said.
It will consider and make recommendations as well as devise strategies or programmes on the 33 items listed in the agenda.
These 33 items cover different subjects, including land to the landless, irrigation to the unirrigated lands owned by Dalits, education and skill development, empowerment of Dalits, liberation and rehabilitation of manual scavengers, the report added.