http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070721235814&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0
ORISSA Jul 25, 2007 Marry inter-caste; get richer by half a lakh Sunday July 22 2007 10:19 IST BHUBANESWAR: There is a five-fold hike in incentive from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 for those from general caste who marry in SC family. This was decided at the Scheduled Caste Welfare Advisory Board (SCWAB) meeting presided by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here on Saturday. The meeting also decided to create a corpus fund of Rs 5 crore for the Orissa Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Development Finance Cooperative Corporation (OSFDC). The fund will be utilised to repay the outstanding loan of the Centre. The State Government will provide the fund to the corporation. A cooperative institution under the administrative control of the ST and SC Development Department, OSFDC is the chanellising agency for economic development of SC-ST people. The Centre provides special assistance to the corporation for implementation of several Centrally-sponsored schemes. However, the Centre has stopped funding OSFDC for the last five years due to the corporation's poor recovery of loan extended to SC-ST beneficiaries. The corpus will also be utilised to extend financial assistance to more people for taking up of income-generating activities. The corporation has extended loan to about 14,000 SC people during last financial year and it has been targeted to provide loan to over 18,000 families in the current fiscal, the Chief Minister informed the meeting. The Chief Minister assured that all the senior level posts lying vacant in OSFDC will be filled up. The meeting also approved the proposal for keeping reservation of 38 percent seats in honours, post-graduation and specialised subjects both in technical and professional courses in Government and aided institutions. The Government has fixed 16 percent (SC) and 22 percent (ST) reservations of seats up to graduation in government and aided educational institutions. In case there will be vacancy of seats in the ST category, the same will be filled up by SC students and vice versa. Promotion issue of SC-ST OAS officers figured in the meeting. Since a large number of promotion cases are pending in various courts, the government is unable to take any decision. Members of the SCWAB were divided over the demand for exclusion of some fishermen from the Scheduled Caste list. While Dewar, Dhibar, Keuta and Kaibarta figured in the SC list published by the Centre, they are yet to be included in the State SC list. While Mohan Jena, MP, and Baidhar Mallick, MLA, demanded their exclusion, some senior legislators including Sanatan Bisi, Bimbadhar Kuanr and Jogendra Behera were in favour of inclusion.
