The Karnataka government has chosen to establish a separate secretariat for its implementation of welfare initiatives for Scheduled Tribes, according to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
He was addressing after the presentation of the Maharshi Valmiki Awards and the inauguration of the Maharishi Valmiki Jayanti programme, which was held on Saturday as part of Valmiki Jayanti at Vidhana Soudha's Banquet Hall.
"During our previous term, a decision was taken to allocate grants to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes according to their population, in the Belagavi session. Therefore, more funds could be spent under the SCSP and TSP schemes. Earlier, only 6 thousand grants were allocated under these schemes. But during our previous term this amount was 6 thousand crore to 30 crore," the CM said.
"The previous government did not increase this amount. Our government has allocated ₹34 thousand crore for these categories in this year's budget. Grant has also been earmarked,” the CM added.
7% of the state's population falls into the ST group, while 17.1% of the population are SC members. CM was informed that 24.1% of the population falls under the SC and ST categories based on the results of the 2011 census.
Karnataka holds the distinction of being the first state to pass legislation allocating a specific grant for the welfare of SC/ST categories based on this population, according to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
"No government can change this law. After this law, from 2013 to 2018, our government allocated a total of ₹88 thousand crores for SC/ST people. This grant is state-mandated for this size of population," the CM said.
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