Bengaluru, Oct 29 The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday approved the establishment of a separate Adivasi Development Corporation for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), with an initial allocation of around Rs 336 crore.
The proposed corporation will focus on the development of around 2.82 lakh people belonging to particularly vulnerable tribal communities, including the Irula, Soliga, Jenu Kuruba, Kadu Kuruba, Kudiyas and Siddis, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said on Thursday after the Cabinet meeting.
“We need a separate development corporation for them because their living conditions are very different. When they are grouped with all other Scheduled Tribes, it becomes difficult to ensure that the benefits and facilities intended for them reach them adequately,” Gowda said.
He said around 32 sub-communities, castes and smaller groups were expected to be covered, though the exact number would be confirmed later.
The Cabinet also approved two drinking water reservoirs in Bengaluru at a combined cost of over Rs 61 crore. A 50-million-litre-capacity reservoir will be built near Kaval Bairasandra in Pulakeshinagar at a cost of Rs 22.5 crore, while another reservoir in the Banashankari zone will be constructed for Rs 39 crore.
The projects aim to improve drinking water supply in the city, particularly in Pulakeshinagar, Banashankari, JP Nagar and surrounding areas.
In another decision, the Cabinet approved a sewage treatment plant with a capacity of 10 million litres per day at Kacharakanahalli in the Sarvagnanagar Assembly constituency at a cost of Rs 51 crore. The facility is intended to prevent untreated sewage from entering a lake and improve wastewater management in the area.
The Cabinet also decided to distribute 9,243 sewing machines to women through the Backward Classes Welfare Department at a cost of Rs 16 crore to help them become economically self-reliant, the minister said.
The cabinet also approved Project K-Monitor, an evaluation exercise costing around Rs 14 crore to assess the effectiveness of government welfare schemes and determine whether their benefits are reaching intended beneficiaries.
The first phase will cover around one lakh beneficiaries, with approximately 60,000 responses to be collected for analysis and a report submitted to the government.
The exercise will examine the impact of schemes on beneficiaries’ educational, social and economic conditions, identify implementation gaps and leakages, and recommend corrective measures wherever necessary.
“Not a growth index, but it could provide an efficiency index,” Gowda said when asked whether the exercise would generate a growth index.
Rejecting suggestions that the evaluation was linked to the approaching elections, he said the government needed to assess the actual impact of its programmes.
Gowda questioned whether public money should continue to be spent on schemes that did not produce meaningful results and said the need for evaluation was “beyond dispute”.
Clarifying the scope of the exercise, he said it will cover government schemes in general and was distinct from the work of guarantee implementation committees, which focus on ensuring that eligible beneficiaries receive the benefits.
“As far as we are concerned, the guarantee schemes have reached more than 95 per cent of the intended beneficiaries,” he said, adding that minor errors could occur but several other government programmes also required assessment.
The concerned departments will decide whether government institutions or private agencies will conduct the evaluation, he added.
(PTI News)
