Bangalore: In his budget speech, Finance Minister B.S. Yediyurappa said there had been a "substantial increase" in the outlay for the uplift of Dalits and backward classes. But Dalit leaders said the allocation remains just as it did last year: a mere 5 per cent.

"The Planning Commission had sent a notice to the Government last year saying that budget outlay was not proportional to the population of Dalits and backward classes. The Government had promised to mend its ways in the next budget. But nothing has happened," said Indudhar Honnapur, a prominent leader of Dalit Sangharsha Samiti.

There are hardly any innovative schemes and some of those proposed — like admission of 1,000 meritorious Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Ttribe students into "reputed" resident and non-residential schools in all districts were ridiculous, he said. "What does the government mean by reputed and non-reputed?" he asked.

Basavaraj Kowthal, State convenor of Human Rights Forum for Dalit Liberation, was one of the members of a committee that visited neighbouring States to propose model schemes for Dalits.

One of the principal demands of the committee was allocation of money proportional to the population. "The Government has not allocated even a fraction of what we had proposed," he said. The team had asked for Rs. 4,000 crore to be allocated for Dalit development programmes.

Worse, the Government has failed to plug misappropriation of funds meant for specific programmes to Dalits in all departments, Mr. Kowthal added.

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