SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER IMPLEMENTATION OF WELFARE SCHEMES MEANT FOR SC, ST & BC CHILDREN, MEASURES FOR CONTROLLING CORRUPTION IN THE PROCESS OF IMPLEMENTATION

As we all knew that our country is having over 1.3 Billion people is the 2^nd largest populated country in the world, one of the emerging superpower nation, with two Indians in the top 10 richest in the world, has still over 50 % of the population in India live in poverty, nearly half of the children are mal-nutritional, majority of them belong to SC, ST and BC. In order to ensure the well being of all the people in the country Government of India has creating facilities to the downtrodden sections of people to compete with other sections of people to get equal opportunity for all in all aspects. As such Government of India is constantly extending support to all State Governments for the implementation of various welfare schemes for the development and up lift meant of the downtrodden especially SC & ST more particularly for the welfare and development of children belong to SC & ST.

Even though there is constant, perennial  support from the central government as far as funding of schemes meant for the welfare of SC & ST for decades there is hardly any noticeable change in the lifestyle or economic status of majority of the SC, ST and BC population; because of acute lack of seriousness on the part of many State Governments who are the agencies responsible for  implementation of welfare schemes, in spite of all state governments receiving over 80 to 90 % of funds from the Government of India. It is a fact that funds meant for the welfare of SC &ST are being diverted to other schemes which give either more publicity for the ruling government or more mileage for the ruling party as a whole or more benefit of other interests of the ruling government political leadership in majority of states. If called for a “white paper” from the Social Welfare Ministry, Tribal Welfare Ministry and Backward Class Welfare Ministry of all State Governments regarding the budget allocation, funds received, expenditure on the welfare schemes, on the implementation of the Sub Plans for SC & ST will certainly substantiate the stand that funds meant for SC & ST has been diverted to non-SC &ST programmes in many states.  It is an open secret which should be admitted by us that the welfare schemes meant for SC, ST and BC become a money spinning devices for many public representatives, public servants and middlemen in almost all levels especially at grassroots.

It is an open secret that corruption happened in the implementation of welfare schemes previously and keeps on happening at present also. This is evident if we look at the construction of the buildings of which majority of them appears shabby and in some of them in almost dilapidated condition in less than few years after the completion of construction, added to this lack of maintenance making the conditions worst. Also corruption is clearly visible if we look at the infrastructure and facilitates, in the materials supplied for daily use in the hostels like beds, tables etc, to the uniforms, bed sheets, blankets to the daily toiletry items like soaps and even in adolescence girl’s necessary monthly consumable toiletries. Even more shameful, unpardonable  corruption being taking place is that,  the food grains meant for the deprived children are being pilfered money meant for groceries; as a result sub standard, sometimes rotten, most of the time under nutritional & mal nutritional food is being served to the deprived children, which causes irreparable damage to the child’s future, which is leading to declined intellectuality in these children , weak physical structure of body, having a tremendous negative impact  throughout the life  of these children, when children become youth they cannot compete with others in any field whether in education or arts or sports etc, forcing them to leave education abruptly, most of remain as labourers, daily wage earners or a small employment, leading them to remain as BPL, lower income group or lower middle income group in their remaining life and again make them to depend on the government for the extension of welfare schemes for them and their children as well, which becoming a vicious circle. So the welfare schemes implementation for the children has such a tremendous impact on the SC & ST communities for generations. As such more focused, dedicated attention is needed from the all governments; from all public representatives and all public servants who are parts in the system of implementation of welfare schemes to ensure that the schemes are implemented and reach to these children as intended to built a strong nation in future.

It is a fact we have to admit consciously that majority of people involved in the process of implementation of welfare schemes don’t possess real zeal, real intention in the welfare of the SC &ST. Most of the public representatives shower unprecedented love and affection showing lots of interest in the welfare and well being of the SC &ST people especially the children and women welfare, during the election period for their support to succeed in the fray.  Also it is a fact that majority of the elected representatives do not visit these SC &ST places even once in a couple of years and rarely raise the issues pertaining to the SC &ST in their designated forums. Also it is very common that whenever there are media reports due to instances of complaint by NGO’s or complaint by the children of these welfare hostels regarding some issues, most of the times the issues/complaints relate to bad quality of food served to these children, then public representatives & public servants visit the hostels visit the hostels symbolically, to give impression to common public  that they are committed to the welfare of the SC & ST by making announcements, statements assuring all necessary measures for non repetition of such incidents in future, sometimes by fixing small time employees or the warden in front of the media cameras, they also pose to the media cameras by having the food with the children by giving impression to the common public that they are consuming the same food that is being served for the children prepared in the welfare hostel, but the reality in majority cases is that the officials either getting food packs from nearby hotel restaurants or mess or only on that day of inspection by authorities food is cooked in the hostel maintaining standard quality for serving to the children in presence of authorities to bring confidence to the public especially belonging to SC &ST in the them. But this kind of symbolic visits will not solve the issue at all, being very momentary in nature which might improve the situation for few days or weeks in that particular hostel, and later on as usual. This symbolic tact’s are happening time and again at various places, leading to loos of confidence of public especially SC & ST in the system. It is a fact which cannot be ruled out that the loss of confidence in the system by the SC & ST youth is driving them to attraction towards naxalism, other anti social movements. What all needed is a permanent solution for delivering the standard quality & quantity food in all the hostels at all times. In most of states in the country Corruption in the welfare schemes implementation is happening because of lack of proper systematic uniform methods for creating accountability of the public representatives & public servants dealing with the welfare of the SC, ST and BC. Also due to to lack of proper transparent systematic checks and balances and also lack of stringent punishments for this heinous crime as this corruption literally spoiling the entire future life of the children of SC, ST  & BC.

Also we have to admit that many political leaders especially at grassroots  (village level, gram panchayats) cutting across party lines don’t have much interest/ commitment in the uplift meant of the downtrodden i.e SC &ST, instead majority of them look for ways and means to grab whatever maximum they can in the process of implementation of welfare schemes. This is mainly due to lack of restriction of number of terms of election for the gram panchayats for individuals. As of now it is naked truth that only persons belong to local elite, mostly land lords having money power, muscle power are leading the Gram panchayats  for decades and generations as if it is there hereditary right to rule the GP, even though their population is very minor compared to the population of SC, ST & BC. It is a fact that still there exists a downward view or lower view for the SC &ST by these local elite in the villages as such they may not show much interest in the welfare of the downtrodden especially SC &ST. As such there should be restriction on the number of terms an individual can represent the GP, it should be very ideal that maximum of two terms or 10 years whichever is applicable. In addition, all immediate family members of the GP member should be barred from contesting next four terms i.e 20 years in any GP election, which will certainly curtail the existing neo feudalism prevailing in the mask of democracy at the grassroots i.e the villages which are the pillars of our democracy (Ref:***1). Also lack of law ensuring mandatory election of sarpanch from the major populated community in the gram panchayats is a reason for lack of interest in the grassroots towards welfare of SC &ST. If enacted the above law, will certainly favour the majority of the population of SC, ST communities and their children, since there exists over 1.75 lakhs of villages having more than 1/3 of the population in those villages belong to SC &ST (Ref:***2). The statistics shows that over 80 % of SC, over 90 % of ST total SC, ST population of the country live in rural areas. The above measures are very necessary, ideal need of the hour, for effective implementation of welfare schemes meant for SC &ST, as it is evident from the survey reports of GOI Ministry of Panchayat Raj and many other reports that the Gram Panchayats having the SC &ST sarpanches are more progressive and developing compared to GP with non SC &ST sarpanches.

In order to prevent  corruption more effectively especially related to welfare of child education and development more particularly in cases of welfare of SC & ST children, stringent laws should be framed with severe punishments that should be equivalent to the punishments given in the case of genocide, more or equivalent punishment in terror cases, more or equivalent to breach of national security; as this corruption in welfare schemes implementation  for SC & ST children leads to the creation of weak gender of the SC &ST population, as majority of the  SC & ST children  are raised in the welfare hostels. As most of the children who were grown in the welfare hostels are victims of callousness of people involved in implementation process and the circumstances due to this corruption indirectly forced them to become less intelligent due to declined growth of brain due to insufficient nutrients to brain, possess less BMI, have lesser average height, have lesser weight, and posses lesser stamina due to  the food consumed by them these children is mal nutritional, sub standard quality and quantity happing very much due to acts negligence, acute corruption of people involved in the system of implementation, who are aware consciously about the implication of the mal nutrition/under nutrition impacts on children future (If the implications of mal nutrition/ under nutrition are really not known to them will they raise their own children in the same manner as hostel children are being raised?) all these leading to a cascading effect in the SC & ST community as a whole, with the danger of reduction in life expectancy in the SC &ST, because of the danger of genes with weak characteristics are being carry forwarded for generations and generations in future by these children who are raised in the welfare hostels, creation of future SC, ST generations with weak physical and mental characteristics. As such there should not be any hesitation or second thought in bringing the law for punishing the culprits of this heinous crime with punishments equivalent to genocide. These corrupt people swindling away the food, the money meant for their development for their self enjoyment will have a terrible impact on future of the nation as a whole as SC &ST constitute over 27 % of the total population of the country of which over 70 % Children and Youth population. More interestingly majority of the people serving in the lower rank in the army or police or in most of the service sectors like municipalities, transport sector, etc in the capacity of Home guards, Constables, Army Soldiers, road sweepers & garbage collectors, drivers etc belong to SC & ST who are on the ground and front serving protecting our country and all sections of people.

Unless the laws for punishing corrupt people in these cases of corruption are stringent, expecting eradication of corruption or major change the in the prevailing situation of corruption is merely a myth. As such, creation of fear of punishment for corruption is very necessary mainly due to operational reasons in the process of implementation. As most of the hostels are in rural areas and in remote places and reaching them to the district officials is difficult. Due to this lacuna the tax payer’s money spent by GOI, State Governments with good intention for the up lift meant of the downtrodden especially the SC &ST is being enjoyed by some of the so called Nethas (politicians), some of the Babus (civil servants), and the Takedars (contractors) and thugs and touts making entire future of these downtrodden children in dark.  

The immediate, urgent need for fixing of corruption in the implementation of welfare schemes for children especially belonging to SC &ST can be drawn from the recent words of “Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Dr Man Mohan Singh in his recent speech during realise function of Naandi Foundation’s Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) “NATIONAL SHAME” sighting the condition of under-nutrition malnutrition, underweight in the children. Also It is evident from the findings of this organisation and many more survey reports that the maximum percentage of children with malnutrition and underweight children are from the BPL families and mostly SC &ST.

As such there is an immediate responsibility on the part of  Government Of India to formulate a uniform law in the corruption cases is ideal as majority of the funds are from the GOI, alternatively advise State governments to formulate Special laws in the lines of MOCCA of Maharashtra,  for preventing corruption in these cases in addition to formulation of uniform methods/ guidelines that can minimize the corruption in the existing system through creation of checks and balances with more accountability in the delivery system. Also equal responsibility of state government to take urgent corrective measures in the system of implementation of the welfare schemes meant for the SC, ST and BC which can yield the necessary results in the long run.

The first and most important thing needed to be addressed by our governments is the nutritional food issue of the children in welfare hostels. Due increase in the inflation, the cost of food grains and vegetables gone up steeply, resulting in drastic increase in cost of the standard nutritional meal. As such, we have to admit & accept the fact that the amount of money given per child per day for serving the food with the required nutritional value in the quality and quantity is practically not possible. The amount sanctioned is not at all sufficient even for one time standard nutritional meal, the government expecting to serve the breakfast, lunch and dinner in the amount of money is meaningless.  It is not appropriate on our part to simply blame the lower rank implementation persons for the sub standard quality & quantity serving of food in the welfare hostels. As such, certainly the first and foremost priority is to address this issue by substantially increasing the amount per child per day meal cost in order to maintain the standard growth of the children in all aspects by providing required standard meal in the quality and quantity.

Also it is necessary that the menus for the food to be served should be fixed with one or more alternatives for every day. It will be ideal to prepare the menu as per the general availability of the vegetables as per the season in that region, availability in the vicinity of the hostel. The design of the menus should be in consultation with the nutritional experts from National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) to obtain their expert advice in preparing low cost high nutritional value foods. The sample food as per the menu of the day (Monday, Tuesday etc) i.e Breakfast, Lunch as well as dinner should be prepared in the presence of the officials and served in plates and standard bowels which are designed with prefixed measurements which can provide the required quantity having required standard nutritional value. The food prepared and served in the plate and bowels should be photographed and the same should be pasted on the hostel dining hall; also a video should be made and kept for record.  The officials should convey to the children regarding each day menu for its quality and quantity. All children should be thoroughly advised that in case the food served is not up to the quality or quantity is as per the day menu serving should report it to the officials on the toll free number by just pressing the button, which will get the connected over phone through call centre, which will alert the officials appropriately. On receiving the complaint the officials should make arrange the local officials of the SW/TW, officials like MRO etc visit and check the quality & quantity of food served to the children, take a photograph of the food served, forward it to the district SW, TW officials for further action.

The above measures is very necessary As It is a fact that in majority of the hostels the “dal” prepared for 100 children with just 500 grams quantity of yellow gram and several litres of water, and mostly either “potatoes” or “bringal” is served in lunch/dinner and in the breakfast only watery “upma” with excess quantity of salt for getting the required taste is being served. Several times lunch or dinner served with rice prepared from broken rice, sometimes even rotten rice along with “rasam /watery dal” is served, the wheat roti/ chapatti prepared from rotten wheat or the wheat floor is stale containing insects, most of the times not consumable and hardly contain any nutritional values for the growth of the children. As such, the warden as well as the cooking staff should be thought/ given training in preserving the nutritional values and maintain higenity in the preparation of  food as per pre fixed  as designed and directed by nutritional experts, for this a video film should be made in the presence of nutritional experts and displayed to all cooks and wardens  for example the cook should be thought to use the salt appropriately as per the requirement of the salt for the children, should be advise  certainly not to use of salt more than specified quantity, as excess salt consumption will weaken the bone formation of the children, it also leads to reduction in the intellectual capacity of the brain, and many more long term complications on the future of the child. Also all the children should be provided with calcium supplements appropriately on the advice of the doctors. Also it will be ideal that the children in the welfare hostels should be provide with “Nutraceutical porridges” at least twice in a week as a part of breakfast to induce the required balanced nutrients to them. For example the Nutraceutical Porridges like “E-PAP” has been extensively in use in the some of the poorest African countries for feeding the children. The e-pap is the low cost multi grain powder consumed by socking in water, (more or less like “Pedisure”, “Ensure” in India which is expensive) which will provide required balanced calories, energy and nutrients. This kind of low cost high calorie, protein rich Nutracetical porridges can be introduced to SW/TW hostels in consultation with institutions like Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). 

The most important task on the part of state governments in the process of preventing corruption in the implementation of welfare schemes meant for SC &ST is the formation of special committee comprising of relevant machineries of the state government to create checks and balances and accountability with more transparency in the system of implementation.

There should be a Group of Minsters committees for monitoring the implementation of the welfare schemes for SC,ST and BC and formulate action plans for better reach, implementation of schemes  which should submit report every three months to the Chief Minister. The CMs intern should submit report to Government of India. Every state government should formulate a higher bureaucratic committee comprise of Principle secretaries of Social welfare, Tribal welfare and B.C welfare and Principle secretary Revenue, Principle secretary Rural Development, Principle secretary Education also the Pl secretary R&B, Principle secretary Health, Principle secretary Women & Child Welfare, Principle secretary Civil Supplies, Principle secretary Municipal Administration, Principle secretary energy. The committee monitor the role of concerned department in the implementation process, also monitors the reach of necessary coordination and cooperation from that department to the SW/TW department for yielding the desired results, submit report every month to the GOM on welfare schemes regarding the implementation of the schemes.

To achieve this there should be mandatory monthly review meetings on the progress of the implementation of the schemes the welfare hostels. The principle secretary rank officers of the above committee should obtain monthly dossier reports from their respective departments regarding the inspections, progress in repairs the quality and quantity checks etc. The dossiers does not mean simply changing the figures but the district officials should mandatorily keep the supporting evidences like photographs, register extracts for the quantities etc and other evidences of the inspection by their subordinates and the report submitted by their subordinates for the record.

Every Principle secretary has to convene compulsorily meeting of the district officials every month on the end of the month either individually or in a group all together in the head quarters or through video conference for the monitoring of implementation of welfare schemes in the hostels.

In order to support the higher bureaucracy committee there should be a district committee for monitoring of implementation of welfare schemes comprising of District Collector, District Medical & Health Officer, Director  Social Welfare, Director Tribal Welfare, Director Backward Class Welfare, District Education officer, Director  Women & Child Welfare, Director /Commissioner Civil supplies, Chief Engineer Roads &Building, Municipal commissioners in that District, and all other authorities who has indirect role in the implementation process. The District committee should meet once in a fortnight to monitor the situation and for necessary coordination.

In order to ensure the scope for corruption in the process implementation of welfare schemes is marginalised, To ensure better coordination and cooperation and better implementation of welfare schemes All the Social welfare and Tribal welfare departments of Central Government and State Governments, a Fully Computerised dedicated Communication Channel like a Virtual Private Network (VPN) should be established which can be used to monitor all the welfare activities in the ministry. All the officials should have a separate e-mail account with appropriate web space as per their designation within the VPN to receive and up load data, and all data of the funds allocation, distribution, inspection, observations of the inspection, the evidences gathered during inspection like the photographs etc should be shared instantly among the officials in the hierarchy in the SW/TW. This enables the accurate flow of data/information almost in real time in the hierarchy of these ministries which will enable the GOI, State Government at the top to know the ground realities on day to day bases enabling them to take appropriate necessary steps to guide the executives at the district and mandal level to fix the issues in all matters. To ensure the ground realities in the implantation process are more visible and clear, all the officials in the field work and on the inspection teams and inspection squads should be provided with standard 3G connection tablet PC having front and back camera for recording the data and taking photographs and transfer the images and video of the inspection instantly to the server of the VPN of the SW &TW department. This will help in having a video talk with the senior officials at district level instantly from the spot with clear cut instant evidence about the happening. In order to ensure the the photographs taken on the inspections are fresh it will be ideal that the photograph should display inspection pin number that was generated at the district head quarters and SMS ed to the inspection official to be written in bold letters on plain paper while taking the photograph and the video. The VPN software will generate instant inspection permission number online to the district official on request. The VPN should be accessible to all the next level in the hierarchy. i.e the district officials should see all the data of other subordinate officials of the department for checking the data accuracy of the reports of the integrated data of the district hostels. Likewise the state principle secretaries should be able to access all the data of the district officials as well as the other subordinate officials of the district. The central government SW & TW ministry officials from the director rank on wards should be able to access the data of all state principle secretaries of SW & TW ministries. This method will ensure the bureaucracy will be alert all the times and the implementation will certainly be better.

Also it will be more ideal and necessary that a video conference (VC) facility should be established in the VPN system of the SW/TW ministries. This will provide direct interaction of the Minster at GOI and State wise Ministers individually, also on conference with all states.  Similarly Video Conference among GOI officials and State Government Officials, Similarly Video Conference among the state officials and the district officials, among the district officials and the field officials. The VC’s should be regular, periodic to monitor and fix the issues more appropriately. The Video Conference facility can be useful as a multipurpose cost effective communication channel.

The first and foremost job of SW &TW department heads at the district level is to obtain a report from the Chief Engineer R&B regarding the condition of the building, whether quality standards are maintained in the building construction, the life span as per the contract while construction contract was awarded, the present repairs required, the cost of the repairs, the present photo graphs of the building, the availability of water for drinking and sanitation, the facility and condition of toilets, the toilets are sufficient for the strength of students in the hostel or not, whether proper provision and facility for the storage of the belongings of the students are available or not, proper ventilation and lighting and electricity  facility available for the students for their study, proper facility for storage of the food grains available in the hostel and proper space for cooking is available or whether the cooking place causes any smoke and fumes entering in the stay rooms making kids suffocate children or not, the dining room and dining facility available for the hostel or not, if available is it sufficient or not,  the electrical connections safe or not, is there any leaks in the building and suitable for stay in rainy season or not, is any compound wall or fencing is existing to the hostel building, the surroundings of the compound or the hostel building for any water bodies or trenches etc should be observed and filmed and recoded evidence should be maintained. And the photographs of the existing building and facilities should be made and kept as record. The photo should contain the day and time of the visit along with the display slip code number of the authority to inspect by the Engineering Authority. The checks should be made soon after the repairs are done and the report should be submitted along with photographs of the repairs.  The regular maintenance job should be done by the Engineering department and surprise checks should be made by squads for the quality of the repairs and the regular maintenance.   The original contractor if committed any violations in building construction resulting in sub standard and faulty construction, a criminal case should be registered against the contractors and the money should be recovered.

It is most important that Chief Engineer should formulate a team to inspect the buildings from the engineers who are not directly or indirectly part of the construction of the hostel building, as such engineers from other zones/districts in the state should be sent to inspect the hostel buildings in other districts. Also Contract Laws should be amended that any deviation of violation of building construction to the welfare hostels and school buildings for SC &ST and BC should attract the SC &ST atrocities act on the contractors and engineers who approved the payments to the contract work, and the amount spent on present repairs due to the deviation / dilution of the contract agreement should be recovered from them. This amendment should have the retrospective effect from at least 15 years. Without which the injustice happened to the SC & ST children who has undergone acute trauma and mental condition cannot be justified.

The District Medical and Health Officer should obtain the report on the health condition of the each child in the hostel hostel wise. The doctor’s team visiting the hostel should examine the child and record the data on the data sheets. The mandatory observations of the Doctor should make regarding ENT problems (ears, nose and teeth), skin diseases, blood test details etc any other medical history of the family. As most of the children are from the BPL families are likely prone to common symptoms like anaemia, goitre, etc. All the  children should be photographed, the height, weight, their body statics, the BMI, any diseases the children facing, the data of polio / other vaccinations etc and the data should be feed in the computer system. The data should be collected every month and uploaded in the computer system and analysed for the growth statics of the child periodically. In order to prevent any mal administration there should be different teams should be formed every month and not to repeat the team in the same hostel. Also there should be surprise squad teams to recheck the data of the children whether the data submitted by the team of Dr is truthful or not and severe action in case of any violation and misrepresentation of facts. Also the DMHO should ensure that emergency medical kits available in every hostel containing like cotton, bandage, anti septic lotions etc. Also all the children should be educated about the fist aid, precautions to be taken in emergency situations before approaching a physician like in the event/incident of dog bites, snake bites, or honey bee bites or any eye irritation, or conjunctivitis or any communicative deceases or any allergies or care in summer especially during sun stroke, or care in rainy seasons and care winter care and etc.

The Director W & CW should obtain the data of the children regarding the nutritional values of the food supplied, the data of the number of girl child, whether the girl is adolescent or not, separate toilets exists for girl child or not, the toilets are hygienic and safe for the use of children especially girl children, their anaemic condition, whether the girls are aware about the physical changes and the safety and hygienic measures need to be maintained during adolescence etc, the natural food supplements needed to be taken to prevent anaemia like consumption of jiggery, groundnuts etc. Also it is most important that W&CW department get training for the children especially the girl children in self defence and self protection in case of atrocities and training in marshal arts should be given to all. As it is very evident from the reports of MHA and others NGO’s survey reports which revel that majority of girl Children who are being trafficked belong to the SC & ST.

The Director / Commissioner Civil supplies should ensure that the food grains meant for the children are of standard quality and the quantity reach to the hostel. To ensure the quality and quantity regular periodic inspections should be conducted by forming appropriate number of teams in the district from the civil supplies side for ensuring the proper maintenance of the quality as was proved by the civil supplies and quantity of the food grains supplied to each hostel by inspecting the hostel register and physical surprise checks on every hostel on random dates without prior information to the hostel during the working hours. Also it will be ideal that the MRO and equivalent officer from any of the mandal level should be asked to accompany the surprise surprise checks and should be counter sign the quantity and quality of the material present in the hostel and the records. Since there is a probability of managing appropriately the local officials visiting the hostel checks,  the surprise checks should be conducted by non local of the mandal, submit the report the same day physically and instantly through wireless sets regarding the quality and quantity to the head quarters for record. For this purpose wireless sets should be proved to the squads that will have the directions from head quarters for further surprise checks. So that the corruption angle as far as the quality and quantity can be reduced to a maximum extent. It will be ideal that the quantity and quality check before delivery of goods to the hostel premises should be made in the presence of the MRO and material should be delivered every fortnight to prevent/ minimise pilferage. In addition to make more leak proof there should be squads that will be formed instantly and given job to recheck the quality and quantity of the material. It will be ideal that the sarpanch and the other village panchayat members should be made accountable in the process by providing the material supply in the presence of the gram panchayat and take the panchanama of the gram panchayt along with the officials and the hostel warden.

The Municipal commissioners should obtain the sanitation and hygienic conditions prevailing independently, each hostel wise and the safety & hygienic conditions in the preparation of food and the service area of food is hygienic or not along with photographs and the necessary immediate steps. Also should asses the availability of safe drinking water and water for sanitation. And the photographs of the existing drinking water facilities and sanitation facilities. The photo should contain the day and time of the visit along with the display slip code number of the authority to inspect by the Municipal authority.  Each hostel should be provided with tap filters and water purifiers for having safe drinking water to the kids, as many of the deceases are water born. Also it should be ideal that monthly once defogging and spray for prevention/spread of mosquitoes, bacteria in the vicinity of the hostel. Also the hostel building should be periodically made to have pest control treatment to prevent the cockroaches, caterpillars and other pest’s prevention in the hostel building in the living rooms, in the kitchen, in the dining room.  Also should supply in sufficient quantities the daily cleaning ‘phenol’ for the cleaning and maintaining the hygienicness of the toilets and the cooking area. Also the municipal authorities/ GP authorities should ensure supply of neem, euculaptis and other plants with medicinal properties to the welfare hostel to be planted and raised in the hostel compound, premises which will provide fresh air having some medicinal values to the children.

Also the District education officer (DEO) ensures that the teachers in the welfare schools are well trained and attend the school regularly.   Also it will be ideal to provide special training classes for all the teachers who are serving in the welfare schools and schools in the rural remote areas for better motivation of the children, ensuring that there will not be any school dropouts and the need for concentration in studies. It should be ideal that the teachers serving in the welfare schools should be given more pay in the form of incentives for serving in remote areas. Also the wardens and attends should be paid allowances appropriately so that they serve the children with most care. The DEO ensures that there will a monitoring committee that will be monitoring the education performance of all the children in the welfare hostels. The monitoring committee should collect the details of performance of the SC &ST children in the quarterly exams and guide the teachers appropriately, make special classes to the children accordingly. All the teachers working in the SW/TW schools especially located in rural areas should be given special allowance for motivating the teachers to work with more dedication and commitment towards achieving better results. All the children in the hostel should be given training in Yoga and other marshal arts. It will be ideal that DEO should create permanent facility in the district with practical demonstration of the theory that is being taught to the children in the schools in the science for better understanding and creating a zeal/thought in them in the subject.  It will be ideal that all welfare hostels should be provided with big screen Television sets with set top boxes and all educational programmes, general knowledge programmes, all innovative programmes in science, and also about the history of India, the great leaders of India and World should be aired daily one hour in the evening and three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening on Sundays and other the holidays. This will enhance their thinking capacity and framing of mindset to achieve something, become somebody and contribute to the family, society and Nation in future. Also all the teachers working in the SW/TW schools should be thought about the techniques of improving memory power, methods of improving concentration on studies, and on motivational techniques, which should be appropriately conveyed, thought to the children in the welfare schools and hostels to improve their skills to get better results by applying the thought process. All kinds should be thought of improving analytical thinking rather than just keeping in memory. As we all knew that there are constant power cuts in the rural areas due to acute shortage of power, which will certainly affect the children performance in the examinations. As such it will be more ideal that SW & TW Ministers in coordination with Ministry of Non-Conventional and Renewable Energy (MNRE) provide appropriate number of solar lanterns to these hostels for non interruption of the studies especially during exam time for getting better results.

The Director SW/TW/BCW should visit the hostels and observe the quality of the material supplied i.e the school uniform, the bed sheets, the daily consumables like soap, hair oil etc and should be uniform throughout the state. All the above department officials should ensure standard quality materials will be supplied. It will be more ideal to have a centralised purchasing of the items in the state level only and the responsibility of the distribution should be given to the district officials.  Also should ensure that all children are grown in disciplined manner, they should be made to have hair cut and nail cut (pedicure) once in every two months by providing the barber to the hostel and the expenses should be bared by the SW/TW department.  Also should motivate the children to get concentrate on the studies and get better results by creating confidence in them. Also to have a toll free number to record the complaints in the hostels from the school regarding the quality  and quantity of food, medical needs, or any other emergencies or for any atrocities should be taken from the children. In case of complaint of the quality and quantity of the food, immediately the administration should alert the MRO or other officials to pay a surprise visit and make a check for the quality & quantity of the food.

Also it will be ideal that the the persons who are posted as wardens should be less than 35 years preferably having school going children of the same age group as the children in the welfare hostel. It will be a fair idea in permitting the children of the warden to stay in the same hostel where the warden is working irrespective of the caste, religion and income status of the warden. This will certainly help in better treatment of all children as the child of the warden is part of the group, warden child also eating the same food what other children are having. In order to give better results in this system the wardens should be barred from separate cooking in the premises of the hostel or else ware, strict action should be taken on getting to the notice of SW/TW officials about such incident, otherwise equality of treatment of other children with the children of wardens may not be possible, keeping the warden children in the welfare hostel has no meaning. In order to encourage wardens to join their children in the same hostel were they are working special allowances should be given to wardens who joins their children in the welfare hostels.

Also it is necessary that land phones should be fixed / mounted on the walls in dining room with facility for receiving on speaker mode and dial the toll free number by just pressing a button like emergency buttons in the elevators that can connect to the toll free call centre and can receive the complaint of the child for what so ever reason and attend the need immediately based on the urgency especially the food maters and the health matters. Also one message should be sent automatically from the call centre to the mobile phones of the district and mandal level responsible official for appropriate necessary action from their end. The children should be told categorically that not to press the buttons for fun and action will be taken for fun calling and they are the losers.  It should be the duty of the hotel warden to maintain the phone in working condition all the times 24/7/365. This working condition of the phone can be ascertained daily by making it mandatory that the warden press the button and give voice attendance to the call centre operator. This method will ensure that every day the warden is present in the hostel, the phone in working condition; the children get the opportunity to use the phone any time. The phone should not have any hand receiver; it is just like a sealed box with a button, having the inbuilt speakers to receive and transmit the voice in speaker mode, since box has any movable parts the chances for getting repair or dead is very meagre. Most of the phones should be wireless and should be mounted inside the hostel building.

In order to build confidence in the children that a group of SW/TW Officials, Revenue officials, Municipal officials, Education department officials, and all other officials who are directly or indirectly involved in process of implementation of welfare schemes should visit once in every fortnight to the welfare hostels, it should be mandatory that one or more women officials should be in the team when visiting  girls hostels or hostels having girl children, should spend one whole evening and night in the hostels at least once in month.  All the officials who will be given duty to spend with the children should know about their issues individually, at their home, at their village, boost confidence in them regarding their future and forward their feed back to the SW/TW authorities and also to their respective department heads. The officials should covey about the basic functioning of the government, about rights of children, need for communal harmony etc. As such all officials visiting the hostels should be given training in child psychology, the methods of motivating children, the methods of teaching good manners, the need for maintain hygenicness the need for having nutrition food and its importance, about the history of India, latest technological developments etc

Also there should be regular, periodic interaction of the warden with the teachers regarding each child.  Also it should be made as a duty to collect the phone numbers of the parents who ever having personal phones or phone numbers of their neiburour of all children, all wardens should be mandatorily interact with the parents once in a week on a particular time and the data of calls made should be maintained for record, also it will be ideal that each child should be allowed to speak to parents for few minutes. For this a post paid mobile phone should be provided to the wardens. This will provide more confidence in the children as well as parents and nullifies home sickness for the children. Also there should be rewards for wardens and teachers on the performance of the children based on the health cards, based on progress cards in the exams. To encourage the wardens to work more dedicatedly, the rewards in the form cash or increments should be given based on the performance. For maintaining 90 % above children having growth rate as per standards and the last bench mark should be 80 % at all times. At the same time less 80 % should be penalised appropriately.

All the interactions of the warden with teachers as well as parents should be recorded in a standard format containing the details of name of the children, class, which was provided by the SW &TW departments and submit to the officials on their fortnightly visit to the hostel premises. All the data of the quantity of the stock  of food grains and other daily consumables also should be recorded every week on a standard format given by the SW &TW department by the hostel warden and should submit to the officials on the weekly visit to the hostel.

Also most important that the SW/TW  officials should gather the details of Childs parents, they should ensure periodic interactions interact with them and share the Childs details and motivate and encourage them to continue the Childs education by infusing confidence in them about the governments support for the welfare of the children especially SC & ST. It is more ideal that the meetings should be conducted in the presence of the village elders and elected representatives. Also the children and parents should be thought separately thoroughly that government is providing all these facilities for the well being of the children and for the future of the children, the progressiveness in the education with best marks is the only way to continue the facilities, as such there will be little positive pressure from the parents side as well as the officials and the teachers make the children learn things fast by putting more attention and concentration on education. Also should discuss with all children in the presence of their parents reading the education performance, marks obtained by them in the quarterly and half yearly exams for encouragement as well as for cautioning in case of below average performance.

All the children should be thought to these children that the facilities they are getting are from the government for their well being and for excel in the education and in their future life, as such they should be loyal to the parents and governments and they are not at the mercy of the warden or the village local leaders, however they should carry respect for teachers and warden for teaching and protecting them. They should be thought that they should not serve the hostel warden or the teacher or the headmaster in their respective residence or not to attend any personal work told by the hostel warden other than the hostel work, in case they pressure to do so it should be complained in the toll free number and attend the work so that the warden or others should be caught red handed and suspended. This should be thought more specific to the girl children especially adolescence girl children. As this may lead to un-ethical behaviour of the wardens leading atrocities against the girl children and to exploitation of the girl children by the wardens and the village elders, spoiling the future of the girl child. It may not be a surprise that it may lead to trafficking of girl child.

Also it should be mandatory that all children in the hostel should be thought about self help, self development, and social activities. All children should be taken for tour every fortnight by the SW/TW authorities to be participated in mass activities like creation of rain harvesting, planting trees, and cleaning the village roads, taking them to old age homes for service, etc  all these along with the SW/TW officials, local officials of various government . This will give required freshness in mind of the children due to outing, also a habituate them to involve in social development activities. Also all the children above class 8 should be thought about the social changes required adverse effects of smoking, consumption of alcohol, cleanliness required after administration of pesticides, maintenance of expenditure and income statements, benefits of savings, etc along with basic out lines of constitutional rights of citizens, the basic outlines of welfare programmes of government for all villagers etc. As these grown up children are agents of good message carriers during their visit to the villages in holidays.

All the SW/TW hostels should be provided with indoor recreation facilities like chess, caroms and other outdoor facilities like foot ball, cricket kit and other game kits to play in groups for the physical fitness. There should be annual sports meets among the social welfare hostel children. Some of the talented should be given special training in the sports hostels to represent the district, state teams in the tournaments. It will be more appropriate that GOI should make mandatory reservation in sports hostels to get the children of SC &ST admitted for formal training in various disciplines in sports. It will be more appropriate that SW/TW should run at least one school and hostel exclusively for training in sports to the children belongs to SC, ST and BC.

Also it will be more ideal that the children in the welfare hostels should be given training in the arts like dancing, singing which are traditional in nature. This is necessary to preserve the culture and tradition for future generations. Alternatively there should be dedicated schools with hostels from the SW/TW for training in the arts and culture. As each region has its own traditional arts and culture that is being neglected and is endanger due to not patronise by people.  This may include paintings, weaving, cloth printing, jewellery, handicrafts, dances, singing etc.

Also it will be ideal that in order to bring the ultimate meaning to social reforms the children in the welfare hostels should be given special training in Vedas or SW/TW should establish should be special schools exclusively for teaching the Vedas to the downtrodden children whose parents wish that their children may take up the profession of priestlyness in future. For this the SW/TW authorities in association with religious mutts and temple trust boards like Tirumal Tirupati Devastanam (TTD) who are running the schools for teaching Vedas, also since many religious organisations intend for a social change and treats prieslyness as profession,in addition encourage the SC &ST to be more near to the rituals making the downtrodden a step closer to the practice of Vedas in their own manner. This will really bring  social change, by infusing social equality in the mindsets of Generation Next, change the dynamics of cast, religious perceptions in the of GenNext.

The SW/TW Ministries should ensure maintenance of records of each child wise, school wise, hostel wise, mandal wise, district wise, and state wise for accurate monitoring the welfare, and progress of each child by gathering and clubbing the information obtained from the DMHO, DEO, DWCW, Etc from each state through the DSW/DTW. The data will be analysed periodically for appropriate necessary steps to further improve the system or to fix the lacunas or any shortcoming observed during the course of analysis. Also the SW/TW Ministers should ensure that the details of mandatory visits of the officials, and elected representatives to these schools/ hostels should be uploaded to the computer system and all the observations of the officials and the elected representatives should be correlated, analysed and should take into consideration for appropriate necessary action. Also the complaints received / raised from the hostels through the call centre should be segregated district wise and analysed and sent it to the District SW/TW for necessary appropriate action, the action taken report also generated and make to the public website.  To do all this data analysis the VPN will be very useful operating mechanism.

Also the SW & TW minister’s should put positive pressure on GOI to enact law to make it mandatory contribution from the MPLAD funds to create a fund pool in every state and made mandatory that all public representatives like MP/MLA should contribute to the Welfare fund from their MPLAD or MLA LAD.  However there should not be any restriction on other MP/MLA contributing to the welfare of SC &ST through their MPLAD/MLALAD. All the elected MP/MLA from the reserved constituencies should contribute 30 % of their MPLAD/MLALAD to the welfare of the SC &ST respectively. All other elected MP’s having one or more SC & ST reserved assembly segments should contribute 15 % of their MPLAD. Similarly the other than SC &ST reserved elected MLA with SC &ST reserved mandals/blocks should contribute 15% of their MLALAD. All other elected MP’s should mandatorily contribute minimum 10 % of the MPLAD to the welfare of SC &ST.  All the upper house MP’s/ MLC’s should contribute 25 % of their MPLADS/MLCLAD funds.  There should not be any sealing on the upper limit of percentage of contribution from the MPLAD/MLALAD. All other MP/MLA should mandatorily contribute 5% from the MPLAD/MLALAD as even though there is no reserved assembly segment in that parliament constituency there are SC/ST people living in those territories. The statics of the Parliament Lower house has 543 MP’s elected of which 84 SC MP’S and 47 ST MP’s with a total of 131 elected SC & ST MP’s and more interesting out of 543 Parliamentary constituencies  490 Parliamentary constituencies having one or more SC & ST reserved  assembly segments. Also the upper house contains 245 MP’s. In the country 28 States and 7 Union territories has a total strength of 4120 MLA’s out of which 570 are SC and 520 belong to ST. In addition there exists upper house of the state legislature i.e legislative council in six states having 452 numbers of members. It is very necessary and appropriate as the SC &ST are instrumental in their success in the fray of election for their position to represent in Parliament/Assembly. Apart from the mandatory contribution, also it should be mandatory that the all elected representatives MP/MLA should visit the welfare schools & hostels in the constituency visiting all/some in that quarter, also meet parents and the people belong to SC, ST in their respective constituencies once in three months before the beginning of the secession, submit their observations and findings in their visit in the immediate next secession of Parliament/ Assembly to their respective house as well as SW/TW ministries in a standard format designed and supplied by SW/TW Ministries. It will certainly gives a message that politicians cutting across the party lines are not using the SC &ST as their vote banks but also really interested in their welfare. This measure will certainly enhance the confidence in the SC &ST about the political system as a whole and in particular parliamentary democracy.

In addition the ministry of SW &TW should create a Social Obligation Trust (SOT) for the supporting the SW/TW ministry programmes, through collecting funds from voluntary contribution from the public representatives and public servants belonging to SC & ST, voluntary contribution from the employees of the private organisations who availed the SC &ST reservation facility and mandatory contribution for the entrepreneurs belonging to SC & ST. It will be more welcoming for the individuals who are non SC/ST have the large heart and contribute to the welfare of SC &ST. Since the public representatives or public servants belong to SC, ST most of them used the reservation facility, some of them are brought up in the welfare hostels  and grown in their carrier and life and reached to the position, it should be moral obligation binding on them to contribute to the welfare of the SC &ST children development. All SC & ST MP/MLA should contribute minimum 10 % of their annual income in their personal capacity,  (the contribution from MPLAD/MLALAD is mandatory official contribution ) Likewise all civil servants like IAS, IFS, IPS, IRS etc should contribute 5 % of their annual income to the social development fund. All Group -A officials should contribute 4%, Group-B officials 3%, Group-C employees 2% and Group-D employees 1 % of their annual income for this social fund. All the SC & ST self employed persons who availed the loans and concessions from the Government should mandatorily contribute 5 % of their annual income for the fund. There should be no limit on the maximum amount of contribution from the individual employees. In case of employees from the private organisations wish to contribute it should be minimum 1% and there is no maximum limit. The contribution should be collected from the Drawing and disbursement officers/ heads of the organisation in that level which is possible through providing a declaration from the donors to deduct from their salary for all voluntary contribution from employees, where as the entrepreneurs should contribute through bankers demand draft. The details of contribution should be displayed in the website against each individual which will create a social obligation on every other individual to contribute to command social respect. It should be ideal that all this contribution should be exempted from the tax.  This will certainly help more and more SC & ST persons as many SC & ST people who are raised in the carrier using reservation will certainly contribute their bit to the deserving future generations of SC &ST the display of all the names of the MP/MLA, Officers of SC &ST and their contribution will certainly raise their responsibility to contribute.  Also it should be made mandatory that the SC &ST entrepreneurs should mandatorily employ at least 30 % of their employees belonging to SC & ST. This system will certainly enhance the social responsibility of every citizen. The above mandatory and voluntary contributions from the public representatives and public servants truly up hold the spirit of the Constitution Provision of Reservation for the uplift meant of the Downtrodden.

Also it should be ideal that Individuals, NGO’s and other groups interested in adopting the SC & ST welfare hostel maintenance should be considered. Also it will be ideal for providing the major corporate to adopt the district wise SC & ST hostels  especially the corporate having factories in that district for the maintenance of the hostel, corporate hospitals to adopt the district wise SC & ST hostels for free check up and delivery of medicines.

Also the central government should select every year 1/5 of the districts in the states starting with districts having maximum number of SC & ST, BC welfare hostels for converting them as integrated school, model hostels in same campus with the introduction of modern teaching methods by installing the interactive e- learning system in the hostels, providing computers to the children. In the next decade the welfare hostels should be like premium institutions like IIT as far as the school education is concerned.

All the above suggestions on implementation will help reduction of School dropouts and reduction of child labour and reduction of youth attracting to anti social activities like naxalisim, extremism, terrorism etc, and will really enhance the enthusiasm not only in these children, in their family, in their community but also in other children in their village and create a desire in them to go to the school, education, more stronger working force, more development activities means raise in economy, leading our nation become truly a super power nation. As such in addition to the well maintenance of the existing hostels, it is necessary to built more SW & TW schools, hostels with all modern enmities, provide the state art of education and training facilities. It will be more ideal, appropriate that the facilities of the SW hostels should be extended not only to the children belong to SC, ST and BC but also to all the children belong to BPL families, lower income group, irrespective of Caste and Religion which truly makes these children more responsible citizens, casting them to become truly “Assets of the Nation”.

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JAI HIND