BENGALURU: Solicitor general of India and Former Lokayukta of Karnataka, Santosh Hegde said the government is violating human rights by wasting crores of money for corrupt practices. Speaking at the celebration of 71st year of Universal Declaration of Human Rights at St Joseph’s College (Autonomous) here on Tuesday, Hegde told students: “Until I became the Lokayukta, I did not know about human rights violations committed by an institution called the government, irrespective of the political party in power. We have lost crores of money through jeep scam, Commonwealth scam, Coalgate scam among others, where money was siphoned off from the treasury of the government. This has an impact on funds for education and health which the government is supposed to provide.”
Citing an instance where he had received a complaint from a poor woman who was unable to avail the Bhagyalakshmi scheme, where monetary benefit is given to poor families with a girl child, Hegde said,” The woman, in the later stage of her pregnancy, walked 9 kms to the hospital. The staff told her to pay a bribe to get admitted and told her to sit outside until she gets the money.
In the meantime, she delivered the baby in a bus stop on the road and the government refused to allot the money from the scheme because the baby was not born in a government hospital.”He said the government does not have money to build shelters for the homeless, leaving several people to live on the streets. “ Homelessness and hunger deaths due to lack of food are all violations of human rights,” he said.Father Victor Lobo, principal of the college spoke on ‘humanism does not depend on religion’.