Udupi : Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake said the government was committed to the welfare of SC/ST communities and had initiated many programmes in this direction.

Speaking to media persons after chairing the SC/ST grievance meet, the minister said that district administration would conduct a study on DC Manna land available in the district and also on the impediments in the process of ensuring title deeds to the beneficiaries.

Sorake added that encroachments on the DC Manna land will evicted. Henceforth, the district administration will compulsorily hold the SC/ST grievance meet once in three months to look into the problems faced by the communities.

The minister added that scholarships were hiked for the students belonging to the SC/ST communities. He said that second PU merit scholarship amount had been hiked to Rs 20,000 per annum from Rs 750 per annum. Besides the scholarship for degree students was hiked from Rs 1,000 per annum to Rs 25,000 per annum.

Sorake said that the medical and engineering aspirants would receive Rs 35,000 per annum as scholarship against the earlier amount of Rs 1,500 per annum. He said the compensation package under Dalit Atrocity Act was hiked as per the Government ordinance dated August 1, 2015. The amount ensured for the inter-caste marriages, where one of the spouse belongs to the SC/ST communities, is hiked from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh. He added that as many as three co-ordinating officers were appointed.

The Koraga families will be offered nutritious food package, worth Rs 1,763, for six months. He said he would initiate an inquiry into the irregularities in the funds released to the BCM hostels, if complaints were lodged.

At the meeting, the SC/ST community members raised the issue of construction of a new Ambedkar Bhavan, at the cost of Rs 1 crore, in Adi Udupi as the present Bhavan was in a dilapidated state.

Dalit leader Manjunath Giliyaru said that a proposal to construct a separate crematorium at Ucchila for dalits should not be permitted. The gram panchayat has taken the decision to construct two crematoriums, one exclusively for dalits and one for other caste people, he added. The leaders also demanded that the DC Manna land encroachments should be cleared in 30 days. They said that Mogaveer community should not be considered a ST community as it was economically and socially strong. The backlog jobs available for the SC/ST communities should be filled immediately.

The demands also included that the statue of Ambedkar, at present in front of the DC Office in Manipal, be replaced with a better-looking idol of the leader, ESI and PF facilities for civic labourers and banning of stone crusher units at Karje as nearly 70 ST families were affected by it.

They also condemned the construction of underpass at Kirimanjeshwara, as a number of Dalit families in the area would be displaced.