The Hindu : All bonded labourers to be rehabilitated this year

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 23, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

All bonded labourers to be rehabilitated this year

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD July 22. All scavengers, bonded labourers and Jogins in the State will be rehabilitated this year, according to the Social Welfare Minister, J. R. Pushparaj.

He informed the Assembly during question hour that as many as 16,484 persons and their family members engaged in scavenging were rehabilitated by the Government last year when a budget of Rs. 32.05 crores was earmarked. The budget this year was Rs. 23.9 crores.

Answering a spate of supplementaries on steps taken for protecting the rights of Dalits and uplifting them economically, Mr. Pushparaj said the Chairman of the proposed SC/ST Commission would be appointed as soon as Presidential assent was received for the Bill adopted for its creation in the previous Assembly session.

The Minister said only 3,153 out of 20,982 SC/ST backlog posts were vacant and even these would be cleared as early as possible. The process was on to fill all posts of wardens in Social Welfare hostels and to install biometric machines to ensure proper attendance of wardens. So far, they had been installed in 200 hostels.

Admitting that untouchability had not yet been fully eradicated, he pointed out in this regard that the Government had accepted all 42 recommendations of the Justice Punnaiah Commission. He said four lakh students were admitted to schools under the "back-to-school programme'' to check the problem of dropouts.

He denied the contention of TRS member, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, that the Government had failed to fully utilise the funds allocated by the Centre for social welfare.

Illegal mining: The Mines Minister, Uma Madhava Reddy, assured that illegal mining around Borra caves in Visakhapatnam district would be stopped. She also assured that Government would encourage Girijans to form societies and give them leases for mining in tribal areas.

She was responding to a supplementary by Congress member, Challa Ramakrishna Reddy, who said tribals of Vizag had successfully turned out five private companies engaged in mineral exploitation. But now a person, Puli, a tribal himself was creating problems in the region which was rich in dolomite, calcite and coloured stones. They were demanding that only locals be permitted to do mining.

New leather parks: As many as 94 leather industrial parks are planned to be set up in the State over the next five years with a total outlay of Rs. 284 crores, the Minister for Small-Scale Industries, B. Gopalakrishna Reddy, said.

He told D. Uma Maheshwara Rao (TDP) and others that the Government was giving priority to promotion of leather and apparel because of their high potential for providing employment to Dalits and women respectively. He said AP accounted for 10 per cent of the country's leather production but tanning and processing work was entirely being done by units in Tamil Nadu.

The World Bank had agreed to lend Rs. 14 crores for setting up seven parks out of 10 proposed in the first phase in nine districts.

Medical facilities for tribals: Mr. Pushparaj said the Project Directors of ITDA were empowered to refer cases of tribals needing treatment for heart ailments, cancer etc for assistance from the CM's Relief Fund.

He said that the A. P. Tribal Health Service had been launched in nine districts with jurisdiction over 10 referral hospitals, 163 PHCs, 891 sub-centres, 292 medical officers and 610 multi-purpose health workers. The Minister's reply did not satisfy the CPI (M) member, N. Narsimhaiah, who protested that he had not replied to his specific question whether a special fund would be created to assist tribals needing special treatment.

No re-exam: The Major Irrigation Minister, K. Srihari, ruled out the question of conducting the EdCET-2002 again since almost all candidates had been issued duplicate hall tickets before the commencement of the exam.

Answering supplementaries on behalf of the School Education Minister, he told K. Laxman (BJP) that the EdCet Convenor had been removed and disciplinary proceedings initiated by the department against officials responsible for delay in despatching the hall tickets. He said 96 per cent of the candidates enrolled in Anantapur district had written the exam.

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