BERHAMPUR: Atrocities and attacks on persons belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) are on the rise in Ganjam district.
This was revealed during a review meeting of the district level SC/ST Vigilance Monitoring Committee held at Chhatrapur recently. A total of 429 SC/ST atrocity cases, including 298 in Ganjam and 131 in Berhampur police districts, have been registered from 2014 to 2019.
Police have filed chargesheet in 60 per cent of the cases after inquiry while 12 per cent cases were proved false.
In Ganjam police district, chargesheet has been filed in 181 out of 298 cases while 31 cases were proved false. Similarly in Berhampur, police filed chargesheet in 88 out of 131 cases while 20 cases were false. As many as 386 cases were pending in different courts of the district.
A compensation of Rs 21.81 lakh was disbursed to 59 victims in 2015-16, Rs 37.63 lakh to 111 victims in 2016-17, Rs 30.03 lakhs to 71 persons in 2017-18, Rs 39.75 lakh to 29 persons in 2018-19 and Rs 90.37 lakh to 63 victims in 2019-20.
Sources said increase in the incentive amount for upper caste people marrying those from SC/ST has yielded good result.
The Government had hiked the incentive amount from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh in September 2017.
The district administration has provided Rs 3 lakh to six inter-caste couples in 2015-16, Rs 11 lakh to 22 couples in 2016-17, Rs 5.03 lakh to 10 couples in 2017-18 and Rs 39 lakh to 29 couples in 2019-20.
Ganjam Collector Vijay Amrit Kulange, who presided over the meeting, asked the police to expedite the process of filing chargesheet in pending cases. Berhampur SP Pinak Mishra said people belonging to SC and ST are gradually becoming aware of their rights and coming forward to lodge complaints without any hesitation.
Additional Public Prosecutor (APP), Chhatrapur D Sahu said the victims must be provided with travelling expenses by the Government.
Among others, District Welfare Officer Parakshita Das, Ganjam SP Brijesh Kumar Roy, Aska MP Pramila Bisoyi, MLA Manjula Swain, Khallikote legislator Suryamani Baidya and senior officials attended the meeting.