My preliminary reading on the budget is that the state government has not been able to move away from the traditional thinking while formulating schemes for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Dalit thinkers have been demanding developing a Dalit perspective in economic planning as successive State Planning Boards have failed to understand the need for developing such a perspective. The State government claims that the budget has earmarked a share in funds that matches the share of the population of the Scheduled Caste for the welfare of that community.
The claim may be correct, but that is not the issue. The issue is on how the money was being spent. One of the main demands put forward by the Dalits and Adivasis during the last two decades was on providing cultivable land. Many land struggles have taken place in various parts of the state demanding agriculture land to Dailts and Adivasis. However, the state government was going ahead with the same strategies followed in the sixties and seventies on providing 10 cents, five cents and three cents for building houses. An amount of Rs 680 crore has been set apart for housing. The basic strategy as visible from the past was on building flats and houses of 250 square feet to Dalits using the amount.
The state government had in last budget announced that 7,000 houses would be constructed for the Scheduled Castes during the financial year. However, the reality is that only 32 per cent of the amount has been spent from this amount. The remaining 68 per cent of the amount has to be spent within the next 23 days of the financial year. The reality is that not even five houses have been completed. This has been the same case in earlier budgets also. The budget has repeated the same strategy, vision and mechanism without learning from the past mistakes. That is the reason why Dalits do not find this budget inspiring.
(Author is Dalit thinker, as told to Sabloo Thomas)
