Education is the Best Means of Empowering Our Vulnerable Population: Saraka

Bhubaneswar: Rs. 38,437 crore will be spent on different schemes of ST&SC Dev, Minorities and Backward Classes Welfare Department in 2023-24. Tribal sub-component will be Rs. 21,950 crore and SC Subcomponent will be Rs. 16,487 crore, Jagannath Saraka, Minister, ST&SC Dev, Minorities and Backward Classes Welfare and Law expressed.

Speaking to the Press at Geet Gobind Sadan, Minister Saraka said that our Chief Minister is committed for the welfare of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Caste, Minorities and other Backward Classes.

“Education is the best means of empowering our vulnerable population”, he said.

An additional amount of Rs. 1000 per child per annum has been allocated. This will be exclusively spent on proper nutrition to nearly 6 lakh ST&SC boarders residing in more than 5,500 hostels. To ensure qualitative education for ST &SC students pre-matric scholarship, post-matric scholarship, Mukhyamantri Medhabi Chatra ProtsahanYojana 811 crore has been earmarked for disbursement of scholarship to more than 23 lakh students of which 60% are girls, said Minister Saraka .

In ANWESHA programme, ST&SC students through 166 ANWESHA schools and 80 hostels pursue English Medium Education in English Medium Public Schools. For this an outlay of Rs. 124 Crore has been made. Similarly, Rs. 4 crore has been allocated to the 4 hostels under the AKANKSHYA. 100 seated 100 OBC hostels are under construction out of which 66 have been completed, said the Minister.

Commissioner-cum-Secretary Roopa Roshan Sahoo gave a power point presentation and explained the roadmap of the Department to the Press. All the dedicated High Schools will be developed as Smart Learning Centres and dedicated by December 2023. Under this Coding, tinkering, ICT Labs will be established in all our schools. An exclusive Tribal Livelihood Promotion initiative named as Mukhyamantri Janajati jeebika Mission will be taken up in the year 2023-24 which will cover 14.5 lakh households in phases. In the first phase, 1.5 lakh households will be covered through a cluster approach by utilizing an amount of Rs. 500 crore, expressed Sahoo.

For the members of the minority Communities 23 exclusive 100 bedded hostels have been taken up. 100 multi-purpose community centres will be build up to preserve their cultural heritage, 100 minority educational institutions have been taken up on priority basis.

Special Development Councils (SDCs) has been established in 2017-18 in 9 Tribal dominated districts for preservation of tribal culture, tradition, heritage and unique identity of each tribe. Rs. 281 crore has already been spent for sacred groves, tribal culture clubs, weekly market, musical instruments of their culture club, dance, costumes etc. For this an amount of Rs. 176 Crore has been provided, said Commissioner-cum-Secretary Smt. Sahoo. It is worth mentioning that in the academic year 2022-23, 99% students belonging to ST &SC passed Secondary Board Examination.

The total Budget Outlay of the Department for the year 2023-24 is at Rs. 4651.27 crore.

Joint Director Gurbir Singh coordinated the programme, Indramani Tripathy, Director, I&PR and other senior officers of ST &SC Dev. Deptt. were present on the occasion.