Ahead of assembly polls, unspent Rs 950 cr alocated for SC welfare schemes

New Delhi: In a major political outreach to the Scheduled Caste community, the Centre has decided to allocate ₹950 crore of unutilised budget of eight infrastructure ministries to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for infrastructure development and income-generation schemes for SC welfare.

The unprecedented move comes ahead of assembly elections in seven states with substantial SC population over the next one year.

Under Development Action Plan for SC (DAPSC), 41 central ministries are required to earmark 2-20% of their total budget outlay for targeted schemes for scheduled castes. However, several ministries have either been unable to spend this allocated amount or have used it on general schemes without any benefits accruing to SCs.


Eight major ministries - petroleum and natural gas, commerce, road transport and highways, mines, coal, food and public distribution, food processing, and telecom - could not spend the allocated budget under this head in 2021-22 fiscal, people aware of the development said. The unspent amount total ₹950 crore, they said.

According to sources, the finance ministry has decided to reallocate this to the social justice and empowerment ministry, the nodal ministry for monitoring implementation of SC welfare schemes, as additional funds in the current financial year.

This is the first time that the finance ministry has allowed unspent SC welfare funds to be transferred to another ministry.

In a letter dated July 27, the expenditure department has given approval and asked the ministry to identify schemes which do not lead to recurring expenditure in future. According to sources, the ministry has identified four schemes: Dr Ambedkar Utsav Dham (DAUD) for construction of community halls in villages covered under Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana, PM Amrit Jaladhaara for providing financial assistance to SC land owners towards development of irrigation facilities, Business Leaders Incentivisation and Support Scheme (BLISS) for providing financial assistance to SC entrepreneurs engaged in service activities under the Stand-Up India scheme and in sanitation-related technology/ transportation, and PM Young Entrepreneurs Scheme (PM-YES) for providing financial assistance to SC entrepreneurs for projects for strengthening logistics in villages including tractors and commercial vehicles.

This initiative will help the BJP government at the Centre build a direct outreach to Dalits - a sizeable vote bank in states that are election-bound over the next 12 months. Scheduled Castes comprise 25.19% of population in Himachal Pradesh (where elections are due in December), almost 18% in Rajasthan (2023), 16% in Madhya Pradesh (2023), almost 13% in Chhattisgarh (2023), about 18% in Telangana (2023), over 17% in Karnataka (2023), and 6.74% in Gujarat (December this year).