Bengaluru: P Manivannan, Secretary, Department of Social Welfare is considered as one of the most honest and efficient officers of the state. He had hit the headlines following his over night stay in hostels run by the department in various districts of the state. Now he is all set to create one more record by using social media to decide on how the state budget should be spent.
On Friday, P Manivannan invited suggestions from all the stakeholders and general public on what they were looking forward to from the budget allocated for the department of social welfare.
On his Facebook wall, Manivannan wrote, “Now that the state budget is in the offing, I thought we will seek ideas from you. While I don’t promise that all the ideas can be implemented, I assure you, that I will go through all of them and respond to you. Some of the ideas need not come in the budget purview, but can still be implemented. The Department is headed by the Hon’ble Minister. The secretary assists the minister and also coordinates with different agencies coming under the department, like the Commissionerate of Social Welfare, Directorate of Tribal Welfare, Dr. Ambedkar Development Corporation etc.”
“The 24 percent of the budget allotted to the department will be shared with all the 33 departments of the government. The social welfare department gets a huge chunk from that. Though the allocation is expected to be around Rs 5000 Crore, most of it will go to the existing schemes. For the new schemes, we may get a maximum of around Rs 1000 Crore. This has to be used for the development of approximately 1 crore SC population and 50 lakh ST population in our state,” he analysed.
“I am not posting anything about the department’s plan to use this Rs 1,000 Crore now, for two reasons. Firstly, I don’t want to lead you. Secondly, budget proposals can’t be shared with the public as per the existing laws! (Don’t know how long we have to wait to jettison the old laws, and bring in transparency!!) Without saying more, I request you to give your ideas for the development of the SCs and STs in our state. Kindly be brief in your post and you need not mention the financial requirements. We are just trying to get ideas. The Honourable Minister for Social Welfare, Shri. H Anjaneya, is keen on listening to new ideas,” he summed up.
