AICC scheduled caste department to work for the welfare of SCs

The Scheduled Caste (SC) department of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) is moving ahead with a broad set of four objectives or programmes to strengthen Congress and to work for the welfare of SCs in the country, the department's Chairman K Raju said here today.
The first programme is identifying and developing SC leaders who would sincerely work for the welfare of SCs and other sections in the country, he told reporters.
Observing that the second objective is to strengthen the voice of Dalits in the Congress, he said SC departments in every state are being strengthened from grassroots level.

As its third programme, the department aims to emerge as a policy advocacy body on SC issues at national and state levels and the fourth objective is to build cadre in every village who would respond to problems of SCs and poor, he said.
Among other programmes, the SC department is holding consultations on preparing the party's manifesto for the coming general elections on Dalit issues, he said.
"Rahul Gandhiji said we will incorporate in the manifesto only those points we can implement and we would definitely implement what we mention in the manifesto," he said.
Congress and its allies had won 38 out of 84 SC parliamentary constituencies in the last elections and a clear plan of action is being followed for improving the number and also to increase Dalit vote share for Congress in other seats, he said.

UPA I and UPA II have implemented rights-based programmes, especially for poor people's empowerment, such as Right to Information Act, MGNREGS, Right to Education, Abolition of Manual Scavenging, National Food Security bill, he said, adding that Rahul Gandhi has recently favoured a comprehensive framework of laws for eliminating corruption and heralding good governance.