Telangana leaves no stone unturned for SC welfare

From financial aid for students to skilling programmes, govt has been helping the community on all fronts

Hyderabad: The State government has been according priority for the welfare of Scheduled Castes (SCs) since 2014 by implementing various welfare schemes aimed at helping them on all fronts.

From post-matric scholarships and financial assistance to pre-matric students, Dr BR Ambedkar Overseas Vidya Nidhi Scheme to inter-caste marriage incentive, land purchase schemes and skill development programmes, the State government is leaving no stone unturned in implementing welfare programmes.

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The government has enhanced subsidy component substantially up to 80 per cent for the schemes linked with banks reducing bank loan component. It is implementing self-employment/economic support schemes with bank linkage to the educated and uneducated youth in different sectors with minimum unit cost of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 12 lakh in rural and urban areas.

In the last eight years, as many as 8,974 candidates were given training by spending Rs 37.44 crore under Skill Development Programme (SDP). The SC Corporation is implementing land purchase, self-employment and SDP. Under the land purchase scheme, an extent of 16,906.34 acres has been purchased and distributed to 6,874 beneficiaries at a cost of Rs 755.94 crore from 2014-15 to 2021-22.

During 2021-22, over 378.34 acres have been sanctioned for covering 203 beneficiaries with Rs 20.66 crore. Allocations were also made to different departments under SC Special Development Fund in order to implement various welfare schemes for SCs.

Since 2014 -15, over Rs 55,438.89 crore have been spent. Keeping in view the long pending aspirations of SC students, new study circle branches have been established in 11 districts to impart coaching for job oriented competitive examinations.

Around 1,181 candidates were selected for different posts which include 12 candidates for civil services. Payment of electricity bills of SC beneficiaries in housing colonies has been increased from 50 units to 101 from 2018.

Over 16,36,353 households were benefited and Rs 247.90 crore has been spent since 2014. An incentive award of Rs 2.50 lakh per couple was given to encourage inter-caste marriage of SC boy or girl with spouse from other caste.

Focus on education

Under Dr BR Ambedkar Overseas Vidya Nidhi Scheme, the scholarship grant was increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. In addition to US, UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore, five more countries have been permitted by the government. Out of 631 SC students, 620 have secured admissions in foreign universities and Rs.107.54 crore was spent so far.

The State government is also maintaining 873 SC hostels to provide necessary boarding facilities to 73,970 SC students per year studying from class III to PG level since 2014. As many as 1,82,911 SC families were benefited so far under Kalyana Lakshmi scheme with an expenditure of Rs.1422.11 crore since 2014.

The financial grant under the scheme was enhanced from Rs 75,116 to Rs 1,00,116 in 2018. The government has been spending significant budget to support post-matric education of around 2.50 lakh SC students every academic year including reimbursement of tuition fee to the colleges and maintenance of students who are pursuing higher education.