Evaluation of Telangana's Dalita Bandhu implementation sought

Hyderabad: An evaluation of the Dalita Bandhu scheme, introduced by the previous BRS government for the upliftment of Scheduled Caste families, has revealed significant implementation issues.

The scheme was first launched in Vasalamarri Village on a saturation mode basis in August 2021. A civil society organization Forum for Good Governance conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the Dalita Bandhu programme in Vasalamarri village. Under Dalit Bandhu scheme each SC family will get Rs 10 lakh, without a bank linkage.

Their survey uncovered several findings that despite there being only 52 Dalit families in the village, 75 units were established under the scheme. Multiple units were allocated to some families, and a total of Rs 6.5 crores was deposited into beneficiary accounts.

However, the evaluation found that several units were never properly established, and even the fully operational units failed to generate the expected income levels. The absence of adequate training programmes and regular field visits left beneficiaries unable to effectively manage their allocated schemes.

Within six months of the scheme's implementation, many beneficiaries were forced to sell transport vehicles and tractors at throwaway prices, said Forum For Good Governance, president, M Padmanabha Reddy. He wrote a letter to chief minister, A Revanth Reddy seeking evaluation of the scheme and also money spent on it.

So far, Rs 3,884 crores has been spent on the Dalita Bandhu scheme, an amount that Forum for Good Governance believed requires thorough evaluation and accountability measures. The organization has called for action against those responsible for what they describe as the squandering of public funds for electoral gains.

When introducing the scheme, then Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had hailed Dalita Bandhu as a revolutionary initiative by his government, the first of its kind in the country for Dalit upliftment.

Dalita Bandhu was introduced in Telangana to intensify the level of financial assistance to SC households in a phased manner for establishment of income generating assets without bank loan component.

The scheme is planned to be implemented in 118 Assembly constituencies. The activities suggested are, Agriculture, Transport sector, Manufacturing and Industry, Retail and shops, services and supplies, out of the above the beneficiary is given an option to choose the activity of his choice.

Each beneficiary is given financial assistance Rs 10 lakhs, out of it 9.9 lakhs is released into his bank account and 0.1 lakh credited to the common “Raksha Fund”.

An amount of Rs.17,700 crores was earmarked for Dalita Bandhu programme during financial year 2022-23 and proposed to spend Rs. 1.7 lakh crores in next five years to cover all the Dalit families.

“From the beginning the scheme ran into problems. In selection of beneficiaries MLAs and their followers involved and selected their party people. In some cases, Rs. 2 to 3 lakhs were collected by party workers to include the beneficiary name in selected list. Coming to selection of activities, instructions were clear that beneficiaries should be given training and conduct field visit before grounding the scheme but that was not done. In view of serious irregularities and wastage of public money we represented for evaluation of the programme but no action was taken on our representation. The scheme was introduced mostly for political benefit at the cost of Tax payer’s money. As large amount of Tax Payer’s money was squandered for electoral gain, action has to be initiated against persons responsible,” said Padmanaha Reddy in the letter written to Revanth Reddy.