Headless SC commission flooded with complaints

Successive governments have failed to empower the commission for Scheduled Castes (SC) in Punjab despite Dalits comprising 32% of the population, the highest in any state.

The commission, set up in 2004, is flooded with complaints. It gets about 2,500 complaints a year. Most complaints are about discrimination. The commission has only seven employees against the sanctioned strength of 41.

Initially, there were three members in the commission apart from the chairman. The strength was increased to 10 in 2013 during the tenure of the SAD-BJP government. “But the strength of the employees to carry out routine work remains the same. The commission has 10 members and only seven employees to do routine work. In the name of an office, we have two rooms in the Punjab civil secretariat,” says a member.

The post of chairman that fell vacant in November last year has still not been filled and the director, social welfare, has been holding additional charge.

The SC commission is a statutory body such as the right to service and information commissions. Whereas members of other commissions enjoy privileges such as government vehicles

It’s an irony that Punjab, which has the highest ratio of Dalits, has the weakest Scheduled Castes commission

and houses, SC commission members get only a fixed honorarium.

“Whenever there’s an atrocity on a Dalit, the administration may not pay heed, knowing well that we are not empowered to act against it,” says Rajesh Bagga, a former chairman of the commission. RAVINDER VASUDEVA

RAJESH BAGGA, former chairman