Mysore; The Karnataka Legislative Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) recently decided to recommend the State Government to offer Government jobs to one of the spouses in an inter-caste marriage involving SC or ST people.

The Committee Chairman H.K. Kumaraswamy, who chaired a review meeting of SC/ST programmes in Mysuru district at the Zilla Panchayat (ZP) here recently, said that the Committee would recommend to the Government to offer a job either to the bride or the bridegroom to encourage inter-caste marriages.

Pointing out that it was important to extend help to such couples to encourage these weddings in the society, H.K. Kumaraswamy said that the Committee will also recommend to the Government to increase the subsidy for inter-caste marriages from Rs.10,000 to Rs.25,000.

Appreciating the steps taken by the District Administration which conducted as many as 797 inter-caste marriages involving SC/ST youths in a span of three years from 2016 to 2019, Kumaraswamy said that the subsidy given to the organisations that conduct mass marriages should be increased from Rs.100 to Rs.1,000.

Asking the officials to collect all basic details of SC/ST community people in the district, he said that the funds earmarked by the Government under Special Component Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) must be utilised for the development of SC/ST people, for which basic information was needed to bring the community to mainstream society.

He directed the Social Welfare Department Officials to ensure that no pregnant women or children suffer from malnutrition and the Health and Women and Child Welfare Department authorities to take care of the health of women and children.

Noting that the district has a literacy rate of 74 percent, he stressed on the need for improving this rate and the Education Department should provide quality education to SC/ST students.

Social Welfare Department Joint Director H.S. Bindiya said that the district has 47 pre-matric hostels, with 3,155 students in them and 30 post-matric hostels, where 3,383 students stay.

Continuing, she said that there are 21 Ashrama Schools for SC/ST students with 2,439 students studying there. Ekalavya Model Residential Schools and Morarji Desai Residential Schools were also functional and popular in the district, she added.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) B.R. Poornima said that as many as 14,400 people from SC and 9,742 from ST community were deprived of housing in the district. Among them, 9,827 SC families and 8,364 ST families do not have sites to build houses and the respective Gram Panchayats have been asked to reserve 50 sites each for these communities, she added.

The Committee consists of former Minister and MLA N. Mahesh, MLAs K. Annadani, R. Prasanna Kumar, K. Mahadev, Anil Chikkamadu and Ashwin Kumar, who attended the meeting.

ZP President Parimala Shyam, CEO K. Jyothi, DCF Prashanth Kumar and other officials were present.