Scheduled Castes Development in Bangaru Telangana

As per 2011 census, the population of Scheduled Castes is 54,08,800, which is 15.45% of State’s population, of which rural Scheduled Castes Population is 40,72,243(75.29%) and in Urban area is 13,36,557(24.71%). Literacy rate among SCs is 58.90%.

Source: DE&S

The Government has taken number of initiatives for socio-economic development of Scheduled Castes on par with other sections of the society.

Educational Programmes

Hostels

Government has taken up construction of 149 Integrated Welfare Hostel Complexes (IWHC) for providing good amenities & superior facilities to hostellers at a cost of Rs.67.56 crore per complex and with a capacity of 400 SC/ST/BC boarders. Out of 149 IWHCs, 23 IWHCs were grounded.

To maintain the transparency and accountability, Government have introduced bio-metric attendance and towards diet of students, Sanna Biyyam is being provided to students of all hostels.

Post –Metric Scholarships

To curb high dropout rate among Scheduled Caste students, residential and non-residential scholarships are being granted. During year 2015-16, an amount of Rs.289.12 crore has been released to benefit 225000 students.

Ambedkar Overseas Vidya Nidhi

To help SC students pursue higher education in foreign universities, Government introduced ‘Ambedkar Overseas Vidya Nidhi’, and financial assistance of Rs.10.00 lakh each is sanctioned to meritorious students. During the year 2015-16, an amount of Rs.10.50 crore is released to benefit 315 meritorious students.

Kalyana Lakshmi Pathakam

The Government of Telangana envisions the overall development of the Scheduled Castes and in particular the unmarried Girls belonging to the poor SC families / communities who are the disadvantaged section of the society.

In pursuance of this vision, to alleviate financial distress of SC/ST, Government decided to sanction a one-time financial assistance of Rs. 51,000 at the time of marriage for brides who are residents of Telangana State. Accordingly, ‘Kalyana Lakshmi’ has been introduced with effect from October 2, 2014 for unmarried girls, who have completed 18 years of age at the time of marriage and whose parental income does not exceed Rs. 2 lakh per annum. Rs 47 crore and Rs 32 crore disbursed to 9,368 SC and 6,483 ST brides respectively. Another Rs 50 crore was distributed to 10,533 brides from Minority sections.

There is an immense response to the scheme, as already 28,757 SC families registered out of 30,793 families targeted during this year i.e., 2015-16. So far Rs. 129.90 Cr amount is sanctioned to 25,471 SC families. Last year i.e., 2014-15 Rs. 2741.76 lakhs amount was paid to 5376 SC Families.

Land Purchase Scheme

The Government of Telangana has launched a flagship programme called ‘Land Purchase Scheme’ and assigning of 3.00 acres of agricultural land to the women of “Bhoomileni Nirupeda Dalita Vyavasaya Aadharitha Kutumbalu”.

The scheme was formally launched on 15th August, 2014 in Hyderabad by Hon’ble Chief Minister. Under this programme, the poorest of poor SC women beneficiaries, who are absolutely landless agricultural families are to be provided upto three acres of land in the first phase and other SC beneficiaries having small piece of land i.e ½ acre, 1.00 acre and 2,00 acres are to be provided with balance extent of land to make them land owners of 3.00 acres each, in the next phase.

A comprehensive package shall be envisaged to include provision of irrigation facilities, drip facilities, seed, cost of cultivation, fertilizers, pesticides, ploughing, micro-irrigation, energisation of pump-sets etc. for one crop year in addition to providing funds for Land Development, preparation of nursery and agricultural inputs. The amounts for meeting the cost of cultivation etc. shall be directly transferred into the beneficiary’s account.

The Land Purchase Scheme shall be implemented with 100% subsidy and without any contribution from the beneficiaries and also without bank linkages. The District Collectors are given powers to purchase agricultural lands for the above programme at a cost ranging from Rs. 2 lakhs (Rupees Two lakhs) to Rs. 7 lakhs (Rupees Seven lakhs) per acre in the 9 Districts (excluding Hyderabad) of Telangana State.