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NEW DELHI: Not a single ministry has fully utilised funds ear-marked for Scheduled Castes welfare in the current fiscal, an internal stock taking exercise has revealed. A high-level review by the ministry of social justice and empowerment of fund utilisation by 41 ministries has thrown up shocking results with only one ministry (rural development) showing satisfactory utilisation.Even as most ministries show 50-60% utilisation with less than a month for the current fiscal to end, the review has found that funds spent have been on general schemes and not targeted interventions for SCs. Every year, about 41 ministries are required to earmark 2-20% of their total budget outlay for SC welfare scheme under “Allocation for Welfare of SC”.The ministries are required to identify targeted schemes and then earmark the funds scheme-wise to different states. In 2019-20, the ministries had allocated Rs 81,340.74 cr for SC schemes.During the internal review, it was noticed that all departments had routinely done what ministry of social justice and empowerment termed as “notional allocation” for SC beneficiaries. Department of school education, for instance, had used 67% of the funds but the review found that allocation had been done as per the percentage of SC students in schools under Samagra Shiksha programme . A big chunk was also allocated to midday meal scheme. “These allocations have been done on a generic basis that there are SC students also who are enrolled in these schools.These are not targeted pro-grammes,”said an official. AWSC funds are meant for specially directed programmes for benefit of SCs. The normal allocation that is being made to all will go to all the students whether SCs or others. During the review, departments have been told to identify specific schemes. Department of school education, for instance, has been suggested to ear-mark funds for National Means cum Merit Scholarship Scheme which would directly go to SC students.Since the allocations are being done on generic and notional basis, the ministries have no record of how many SC beneficiaries have benefitted from these interventions.