BENGALURU: Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly R Ashoka on Thursday alleged that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah diverted SCSP/TSP grants meant for the welfare of the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) to implement the guarantee schemes and other projects.
Citing the 2024-25 Action Taken Report (ATR), Ashoka said 80% of the development projects announced by the CM did not take off.
Responding to the budget for 2025-26, he said Siddaramaiah should rectify his mistakes in the implementation of 2024-25 budget proposals. The CM should announce that he will not impose any new taxes apart from those mentioned in the budget.
“There is a conspiracy to impose new taxes every month,” he said. Siddaramaiah is likely to give his reply during the session on Monday.
Asserting that the funds meant for the welfare of SCs and STs were being diverted to the guarantee schemes, Ashoka sought to know whether the government could find out how many SCs and STs took free bus rides under the Shakti scheme. It is impossible to allocate money to the scheme on this assumption. This is a fraud on the SCs and STs, he alleged.
He demanded that the government provide information on spending Rs 42,000 crore earmarked for the welfare of the SCs. “Under SCSP/TSP, Rs 4 crore earmarked for the SCs has been spent on anganwadi buildings. Funds under SCSP/TSP have also been spent on tourism projects. How many SCs and STs have been benefited by this? A sum of Rs 34 crore has been given to the Green India Mission,” he said.
Referring to housing minister Zameer Ahmed’s demand that Rs 60,000 crore be allocated for the welfare of Muslims (14%), Ashoka said considering the population of the SCs and STs (24%), Rs 98,701 crore should be given to them. But they are getting only Rs 42,017 crore.