Let Gogoi Answer

Talking to the media after his visit to Assam on Sunday, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) chairman Buta Singh came down heavily on the Tarun Gogoi government for having failed the Scheduled Castes (SCs) of the State. ‘‘The Harijans are living in a veritable hell in Assam. Even beasts won’t be able to stay in such a condition... I have found that the Central funds under the SC component have not been released to the departments concerned by the Finance Department as yet in Assam. There is no system worth the name to monitor implementation of schemes and utilization of funds meant for SCs in the State.’’ Singh has also accused the Gogoi government of not even going by the Constitutional safeguards guaranteed to SCs and of being callously casual in its replies to the queries sent to it by the NCSC on implementation of various schemes for SCs. It is now incumbent on the ‘progressive’ Congress-led State government to explain as to what has deterred it from evolving a mechanism to bail out the Harijans of the State from the ‘‘veritable hell’’ where even ‘‘beasts won’t be able to stay’’. How holistic is this government’s socio-economic agenda? Or must only vote pockets, such as the ‘minorities’ constituency, determine the government’s course of affirmative action? This government seems to have chosen to write off an entire segment of population for it being politically insignificant. THE SENTINEL