1. Budget 2020 starts with BJP minister reciting a Kashmiri poem (about Kashmiri Pandit community) by Deena Nath Kaul. Terrible!
2. As per the 16-Action Point Plan, the youth living in the coastal areas will benefit from “fishery and marketing”. Such a narrow vision and ridiculous plan for the youth of this country!
3. Only Rs. 85000 Crs for Dalits allocated in the #UnionBudget2020. Out of this as well, more than half of this amount will be diverted to issues of no relevance to Dalits.
4. Silence on land re-allocation scheme and continuous alienation of Dalits from owning agricultural land but Rs. 22419 Crores out of Rs.85,000 Crores of the #DalitBudget allocated for fancy schemes under the Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Research and Education.
5. 328 Cr gets wasted from #DalitBudget for projects like Cyber Security Projects, Electronic Governance, Promotion of digital Payment, Manpower Development, National Knowledge Park, Promotion of IT/ITeS Industries, RaD in IT/Electronics/CCBT.
6. Making the entry and survival of Dalits students in Universities extremely tough year after year, institutional harassment of Dalit students to an extent that suicide becomes the only rescue yet Rs. 976 Cr goes in the establishment of New Medical Colleges from the #DalitBudget
7. 342 Crores from #DalitBudget for Improvement of *salary scale* of University and College Teachers while reserved seats for Scheduled castes professors remain vacant and the state fails to implement the policy of reservation fairly.
8. This is for the savarna taxpayers who had been upset about students studying on their tax: Rs. 481 Crores from #DalitBudget has been diverted to the Grants to Central Universities. So well, some of you are actually studying from the funds meant for Dalits!
9. 450 Crores from #DalitBudget goes straight to some of the most atrocious educational institutions of this country in form of financial support to Indian Institutes of Technology, setting up new IITs”, grant in aids to IIMs and NIT.
10. Continuously forcing Dalits into Manual Scavenging and depriving them of accessing water to date, not putting an end to such inhumane practices even in 2020 yet the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation shamelessly will use Rs. 4728 crores from #DalitBudget.
11. 2198 Crores for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Rural and Rs 2530 crores for Jal Jeevan Mission/National Rural Drinking-Water Programme.
12. Just Rs. 110 crores for the Self Employment Scheme for the Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers and just Rs. 25 Crores for the education of children of those engaged in the hazardous and unclean occupation. Not even a single rupee was released from past budgets of the year 2015-19.
13. Mahila Shakti Kendra Yojana focuses on the empowerment of rural women irrespective of their caste backgrounds. However, Rs. 20 crores have been diverted from the #DalitBudget for the scheme.
14. Anganwadi Services (Erstwhile Core ICDS), Rs. 87 in 2019-20 and Rs. 5174.08 crores for 2020-21- All the children in the age group 0-6 years and Pregnant and Lactating Mothers can avail the benefits of the scheme without any condition. Does the Anganwadi and workers only cater to the scheduled castes? Why such a huge allocation from the #DalitBudget? For the Anganwadi Services, Rs.5192.87 crores in 2019-20 and Rs. 5174.08 crores for 2020-21 have been diverted from the #DalitBudget. Under the scheme, all children irrespective of caste in the age group of 0-6 yrs, as well as pregnant and lactating mothers can avail its benefits. Upper Castes kids wouldn’t consume meals prepared by a cook who is a Dalit. In Odisha anganwadi centre was locked on 2nd November until they found a replacement for her. In Tamil Nadu on 7th June, 2019 the cook was transferred, the very next day of her joining.
15. Scheme for Adolescent Girls Rs. 50 crores, who are these adolescent girls? The Adolescent Girls (AG) Scheme aims at breaking adolescent girls’ inter-generational life-cycle of nutritional and gender disadvantage, irrespective of their caste background. Yet, Rs. 50 crores have been diverted from the #DalitBudget for the scheme.
16. National Nutrition Mission is an overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition or POSHAN Abhiyaan initiated by the GoI with the overarching aim to build a people’s movement (Jan Andolan) around malnutrition, POSHAN Abhiyaan intends to significantly reduce malnutrition. Under this scheme for the Ministry of Women and Child Development is aimed at reaching out to women, men and children in general, irrespective of caste backgrounds yet an amount of 764 crore in the year 2019-20 and Rs. 200 crores in the year 2020-21 have been diverted from #DalitBudget. According to Niti Ayog, more than 12.2 Crore women, 6.2 Crore men and 13 Crore children benefited from activities undertaken during POSHAN Maah (month) in 2018 under the National Nutrition Mission/POSHAN Abhiyan. Let’s ask how many were Dalits?

Author – Riya Singh, PhD Scholar at Centre for Women Development Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi, Trained Budget Analyst, Steering Committee Member- All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch

Twitter: @elite_dalit, @dalitwomenfight