The data provided by Bihar government during the meetings has made it clear that Bihar Govt was not able to provide benefits of union and state government’s social, economic and welfare scheme to the Scheduled Caste community of the state, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) chairman Vijay Sampla said while addressing the media at Patna on Friday, after concluding the two-day state-level review meeting of the Bihar government.
As per information provided to the commission, as many as 1852 backlog posts were identified from the year 2017-18 to the year 2020-21, out of which only 160 posts have been filled by the Bihar government so far. Sampla ordered the state officials to identify all the backlog posts and launch a special campaign to fill them.
It was also found out that out of the total scheduled caste children who enroll in the primary schools of the state, only 20% opt for secondary education. “The alarming 80% drop out rate among the SC children shows Bihar government’s indifferent and lackadaisical approach towards their education”, Vijay Sampla said.
Sampla, while expressing disappointment on the fact that the state has only 6 hostels for the SC girl children, ordered the state government to set up at least one hostel for SC girls in every district of the state. Sampla also asked the state government to ensure that the pre-matric scholarship is provided to every SC child.
The status of disbursement of post matric scholarship to the SC students in Bihar also remained unsatisfactory for the NCSC chairman. Data revealed that of the 3,51,730 SC students of Bihar in 2019-20, only 61,489 students were able to apply for scholarship through the portal while only 43626 of them could receive the benefits of the scholarship.
Similarly, in the year 2020-21, out of 4,50,000 students, only 77182 students received scholarships. While explaining the gap, the officials of the Bihar government said that the online portal does not accept applications after a due date, restricting the students to apply for the scholarship, but Sampla clarified that the union government’s scholarship portal is never closed or stops accepting applications.
The data provided by the State Level Bankers' Committee revealed that the economic schemes, being run by the union government for the upliftment and empowerment of SC community via banks , are not being effectively implemented in the state. Sampla instructed the Bihar government to coordinate with the banks to extend the benefits of these schemes to the scheduled castes.
Sampla further said that it is a matter of concern that the number of scheduled caste families getting benefits under MGNREGA is continuously decreasing in Bihar. In 2017-18, only 21.72% of the benefited families belonged to Scheduled Castes, while the number further decreased to only 11.56% in 2020-21. Sampla ordered the government to take effective steps immediately to ensure that employment is provided under MNREGA to the SC community.
At the end of the visit, the Chief Secretary of Bihar told the commission that all the shortcomings pointed out by them would be completed in two months.