The State has emerged on the top in the development of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe people with the DMK government under Chief Minister M K Stalin laying extra emphasis on the education of the youth of those communities, which include assistance for pursuing higher education in universities abroad and increase in fellowship amount for those doing research.
While the people from SC and ST communities saw progress in their life during the tenure of M Karunanidhi, who was instrumental in elevating A Varadharajan as the first High Court judge 112 years after the court came into existence, the present government had implanted several schemes for them.
One of them is the programme, Annal Ambedkar Industry Pioneers scheme, which was launched in May last year to help SC/ST youth become entrepreneurs, and led to 2136 beneficiaries being sanctioned bank loans. Of them 1303 beneficiaries were given subsidies amounting to Rs 159.76 crore, which included Rs 33.09 crore subsidy for women entrepreneurs.
Under the scheme, beneficiaries get 35 per cent subsidy on the bank loans and another 6 per cent subsidy on the interest they paid on the remaining 65 per cent loan.
The government has also extended Rs 1000 crore assistance for the development of the Ayodhya Dasa Pandithar housing colony in the past five years and presently Rs 230 crore has been sanctioned for the current year for the scheme
Of the total allocation of Rs 2992.57 crore for SC Development Scheme, Rs 2,252.51 crore has been earmarked for education purposes, which amounts to 75.27 per cent. Among the various schemes aimed at improving the educational standards of the marginalized people is the Rs 10,000 a month paid as stipend for 774 law students and Rs 65 lakh spent on paying a monthly stipend of Rs 15,000 a month for law clerks trained under judges of the High Court in Chennai and Madurai.
Other initiatives taken by the Stalin government for improving the life of SC and ST people include the raise in compensation for those who faced caste violence from Rs 85 lakh to Rs 8.25 lakh, depending on the nature of the crime and damages caused, to Rs 1 lakh to Rs 12 lakh.
Besides 535 persons had been given jobs as part of the compensation package and one person was given a free housing plot. To encourage the concept of casteless villages, one village in each of the 37 districts is chosen for a prize amount of Rs 10 lakh if it has a common crematorium.
To encourage various arts among the SC people, the prize money for writers in the community has been raised from Rs 50,000 to Rs one lakh with also the scope for the translation of the work into English.
For SC students getting admission in foreign universities, the government provides for Rs 36 lakh and 54 students have benefited by the scheme.
