 Welcome to NewsClick, we have with us Paul Divakar, a well-known face among the Dalit activists who not only made atrocities as an issue across the country but also on the world forum where the issue of atrocities has been taken to the UN and the issue of discrimination was debated widely in the Durban Conference. Welcome to NewsClick, Paul. Thank you Ambedkar, nice meeting you. So today we will not only discuss about the Dalit issues but he also believes that economic empowerment of the Dalits is important because that is the way we can bring them out of the misery. So Paul, you had seen that the last year budget there was no plan budget and you have been following the budget demanding that there be a special allocation for the SESD. So how do you see the change with the cancellation of the plan economy? Before we go into that, I think one point we will have to be clear. That is the so-called rights of the Dalits, we normally divided into the civil and political rights and then the economic rights. One of the things that we will have to notice is that violence is only one visible part of the tip of the iceberg. The systemic economic exclusion is a much more deeper and it affects the body politic of the whole country and the people who are contributing to the nation. So what is happening with the budgets? You know that there are two, three types of revenue to the government, how the government gets. One is the direct taxes that we pay to our income tax and others, the personal and indirect tax, then all the roti kapata macaan, all the things that we buy are also taxed very much and now GST has also made sure that this is getting much higher. Now this revenue if you calculate as an aggregate, Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalized communities, the proportion of the taxes they pay is much higher than the rich and the incomes that is being derived off to the government coffers when they are given back, they are given back as development schemes or the larger infrastructure, roads and others. But what is given back to the Dalits, Adivasis and the other marginalized is only less than 20 percent of what they actually pay to the government and this is currently being researched and this study I hope will come but what is appalling is apart from the violence that is taking place the exclusion from the government resources is so high that today there is a double or triple marginalization that Dalits are facing apart from the violence this kind of exclusion from education, exclusion from civic communities, exclusion from health and other aspects that the government has a duty to function. So this is the context in which the budgets are really important so that is why I think we need to really look at where the money is really going. For a long time I think 1979 actually for the schedule tribes and 1981 I think for the schedule cars this whole special component plan and tribal supply has come to being and of course these flows, these fund flows they have divided it as plan and non-plan so government has at that point has decided the proportion of the population is to be cut from the development part of the that is this called the plan budget which is if it is 16.2 then you also get 16.2 of the plan budget and out of that set that money aside and then plan it from the perspective of where the communities are because this money is specifically to bridge the gap existing between the SCs, STs and the non-SCST community. So if there is a gap of in education then it is to you need to make sure that education programs are sufficiently planned not as a general scheme but specifically to see that these gaps are built. So if it is entrepreneurship, if it is skill, if it is employment, if it is several others so how do you see this kind of a additional amount that is needed to get the development on par with the rest of the community so that then we are able to deal with the fairly equitable way in which the communities can contribute. But what has been the experience because in news I think it was NCHR which broke that commonwealth some money was actually diverted from the special component plan so what do you think is the experience of different governments and how do they treat the special budget allocated to this community. It is a sad story as it is with many of our legislations you know when it comes to the practice the implementation is the weakest and here also what they have said is they have put after a lot of many years I think at least around 15 to 20 years of this whole thing has come in the people's demand has grown so when the demand has grown the allocations have come to almost the levels that are supposed to be given. At the central level unfortunately even at the level of allocation the required percentage is not being given to the schedule cost. For example last year we should have had 99,873 crores should have been the due but they have in fact only given 52,393 crores they have allocated so at the allocation stage half has been cut but then when you look at this half this 52,393 crores how it has been allocated it is paper allocation like for example let us take UGC for example now UGC I mean you would also know you have also been one of the persons who really been fighting for the and demanding higher education for the Dalit community, Nadivasi communities when you look at this 500 crores that the UGC is supposed to allocate only 4.5% of it is directly goes to the schedule cost due lengths in the form of scholarships or something. The rest of the money around 52% of this is for creation of assets capital assets so which means what in the name of the Dalits you are building college buildings and then the rest around 40% of the of this goes for institutional grants so you give it for the maintenance of that institutions so what is taking and you know education is one of the directly and easily planable things and implementable things but what is actually happening it is not happening the money that is set aside is not based on the needs of the communities or for the thing but it is a technical computer allocation which means you take 16.6% you see 500 and odd crores of UGC then you say okay so much it goes for the university grants commission so the money does not reach but the figures show as schedule cost the same thing the schedule price so if education is happening this way employment generation skill development the service six year beyond the entire except for certain schemes of Indira was you know and now I think Pradhan Mantri the housing schemes and maybe some part of the midday meals given midday meals scheme is a general scheme there is very little money so which means out of 99,893 crores which is allocated supposed to be allocated 52,893 half of it is gets allocated among the half of it may be around 20,000 crores directly goes to schedule cost in some way and that real allocation and that real allocation when it gets to spending only half of that gets spent rest is turned back to the central government what about the states diverting the funds to other departments does it happen do you monitor the same thing I mean three of the states have made the legislations out of this one of the things we have also been asking at the central level is have legislation say unless we have legislation there is no leverage from the communities they are not able to so you need a very efficient complaints mechanism because there is a duty bearer negligence there is a willful negligence in the states Karnataka Telangana, Andhra and Himachal have made legislations four of the states have legislated and we looked at Telangana and Andhra they have they have qualitatively done better but the diversions and non implementation of this is still not reached a very desirable level so there is still going for infrastructure but this hopefully the communities will be able to really take take it into their demands because it is an act and now they will have to file complaints mechanisms and then see that how they will be able to but is there a monitoring mechanism incorporated in the act or whom do they have to approach if that is not being implemented there is a council there is a complaints there is a nodal officer that is appointed at the state level there are certain officers that are appointed at the district level for its implementation and each ministry is supposed to have each department is supposed to have a nodal person but in some departments it is done in some departments it is not done I think this we are mobilizing as many communities and this actually we have now taken higher education we have written to the finance minister there is a 12,000 crores of committed liability that is pending and the states have not received this amount oh this is the same post matrix this is the post matrix scholarship fund and after a lot of pressure by ministers by the members of the parliament the finance ministry has taken into it and has reduced as a released some amount but still the last year's committed liability still lies at 5000 crores and the current demand which needs to be given is still another 5000 crores so you still have 10,000 crores and you may have heard the kind of dropping out of students from higher education of Dalit students and the misery that many of our brothers and sisters are facing because of this non-implementation of this higher education this is massive and when we want to take this up as I mean this is a crime this is a crime against the people that the current government is committing and I think this unless it is really redressed immediately it leads to a massive exclusion of Dalit Nadivasi students so the budget as due again on February 1st so is there any special demand or what is the approach from NCDHR and how do you think you will bring about some kind of direction in the implementation and allocation? We have brought this again to the notice of the finance minister and had once again reminded him that the they have committed actually to bring a legislation now that is still pending then we said please do not make these notional allocations anymore because this notional allocations is a major diversion your misleading communities and this budget you know is a act and that has to be implemented and this violation it means to violation and somehow it is not sufficiently been held accountable governments are not held accountable so we brought that notice and we told him at least on schemes like higher education on schemes as Indra the housing and entrepreneurship development and in skill development and of course in horticulture because this is one where most of our communities are involved in land and land based those be clear so whenever you have schemes make it like how you have made the employment guarantee act so that wherever there is a immediate guarantee of the schemes then communities are able to hold them accountable if it is not reaching to them. With that note I think we will hope the government implements the SCST component plan and the Dalit community are benefited.