Post-Mirchpur, SC panel to have offices in 8 more states
Haryana to have a separate office in Gurgaon
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 29
In the backdrop of April 21 Dalit atrocity in Haryana's Mirchpur, the
government is considering setting up eight new state offices of the
National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) to ensure larger
coverage of the SC population.
The country presently has only 12 state offices of the commission,
with the government now realising that they are insufficient to
deliver justice in lakhs of pending cases of SC atrocities and to
foster confidence among Dalits, who will like to report their problems
closer home. At the end of 2008, 98,702 such cases were pending in the
Indian courts for disposal.
Of the eight new offices being actively backed by the new chairman of
NCSC PL Punia, one will come up in Gurgaon to cater to 40.91 lakh SCs
exclusively in Haryana, which by government's admission has a large
number of cases of caste abuse and land grabbing.
Until now, Haryana's Dalits had to go to the NCSC's state office at
Chandigarh for justice, which ironically is also handling the SC
atrocity cases of Punjab, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh.
"The state office of Chandigarh is finding it very difficult to attend
the frequent spot inquiries on atrocity on SCs. It is proposed that an
office of the director for SCs, Gurgaon, may be set up; it can also
have the jurisdiction for Himachal," says a proposal of the Ministry
of Social Justice, actively pursuing the new offices.
The government documents with The Tribune reveal another strange
scenario, when the State Departments of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes were bifurcated and two separate national commissions were set
up for SCs and STs, the assets and staff of most of the state
directorates went to the ST Departments, leaving close to 3.70 crore
Scheduled Castes unattended.
Additionally, 0.79 crore Dalits in J&K (0.08 crore), Himachal (0.15
crore), Haryana (0.41 crore) and Uttrakhand (0.15 crore) have been
finding it hard to protect their interests. Crimes against SCs have
surged with 40,000 cases registered in 2008, which are 3,600 more than
in 2007.
Until today, Orissa's Dalits go to Deputy Director for SCs in Kolkata,
who also has to look after the interests of SCs in West Bengal,
Tripura, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar, if they want justice.
Similarly, Madhya Pradesh's SCs are under the jurisdiction of director
for SCs, Hyderabad, also in charge of the SC affairs for Andhra
Pradesh and Chattisgarh. Rajasthan's Dalits and SCs report their
grievances to Director, Scheduled Castes, Ahmedabad, also in charge of
SCs of Gujarat, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
The SCs in Jharkhand, if they have grudges, report to the Director, SC
Patna and affected Dalits of Chattisgarh likewise go to the state
office in Hyderabad. Delhi for its part has no state office of SC
Commission, though it has the highest number of cases of
discrimination against the SCs in the government offices. The NCSC has
now sought a separate office for Delhi.
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