How Kejriwal Stole Rs 7,164 Crore from Schedule Caste Budget?

After Indian independence, budgetary allocation for 30 years till 1980 proved insufficient for the growth of SC & ST population. The most marginalised community SC and ST lagged in all the socioeconomic indicators. Since 1980, the Government had planned to allocate the sufficient economic budget for the development of SC and ST population.

Schedule Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) was started in the year 1980 with the basic objective to direct the flow of financial outlays and benefits from the general sectors of States towards the development of Scheduled Castes. Further, the Government is required to allocate budget up to at least the proportion of Scheduled Caste population.

Multiple governments have failed to allocate sufficient resources to SC population and many times mixing it with other infrastructure projects. Kejriwal Government came to power with a promise to eliminate corruption and provide welfare governance. Let’s look how Kejriwal Government has performed in the welfare of Scheduled caste population.

NCT of Delhi has a total population of 1.67 crores as per 2011 census.[1] Further, Scheduled Caste population in Delhi is about 20.1 lacs, which is 16.8% of the total Delhi population. So, as per Schedule Caste Sub Plan, Delhi Government should allocate at least 16.8% of the budget.

In the budget of 2017-18, Delhi Government run by Arvind Kejriwal had presented the budget of Rs 48,000 crore. [2] Following the guidance of Schedule Caste Sub Plan (SCSP), Delhi Govt should have ideally allocated at least 16.8%, equivalent to Rs 8,064 crore. However, Kejriwal allocated merely Rs 900 crore, that is just over 10% of Rs 8,064 crore. Remaining due share of Scheduled Caste sub plan budget of Rs 7,164 crore was allocated for other purposes by the Kejriwal Government.

Kejriwal has completely defied Governance processes to siphoned off money from the most distressed and discriminated Scheduled Caste people.