New Delhi, February 10 (NationPress) The Congress party accused the Union Budget 2026 of being a “casteist betrayal” of Dalits and Adivasis, citing significant diversion, dilution, and under-utilization of funds designated for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

The budget is said to highlight their exclusion instead of empowerment, as asserted by Rajendra Pal Gautam, Chairman of the All India Congress Committee’s SC Department, and Vikrant Bhuria, Chairman of Adivasi Congress, during a press briefing in New Delhi.

While the government has announced allocations of Rs. 1.96 lakh crore for SCs and Rs. 1.41 lakh crore for STs, the actual funds allocated for their welfare initiatives were only Rs. 75,077 crore and Rs. 62,093 crore, respectively.

Gautam and Bhuria pointed out that the remaining funds have been combined into generic programs that do not effectively tackle caste- and tribe-based exclusion.

According to the Congress leaders, merely 41% of the schemes under SC–ST allocations were truly relevant, while 42% were general schemes and 17% were considered obsolete or unrelated.

“Welfare for Dalits and Adivasis has been minimized to a mere bookkeeping activity, concentrating more on optics than actual results,” they added.

By emphasizing the declining utilization rates of SC–ST funds, the leaders noted that expenditures had progressively decreased from FY 2020-21 to FY 2024–25.

“In 2024–25, only around 75% of SC funds were utilized, primarily through non-targeted methods,” Gautam and Bhuria stated during the briefing, alleging this is indicative of “discrimination by design” rather than administrative inefficiency.

They also highlighted cuts in the National Overseas Scholarship program, which saw its allocation reduced to Rs. 125 crore.

According to data from 2025–26, although 106 students were selected, only 40 were granted scholarships due to a lack of funds, leaving 66 SC/ST/OBC students without support.

Gautam and Bhuria also reported that substantial amounts of money within the SC Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) had been diverted to programs like fertilizer subsidies, telecom compensation, infrastructure maintenance, and road construction.

“With fewer than 20% of SC–ST households owning land, these allocations tend to benefit more dominant communities instead of Dalit and Adivasi laborers,” they remarked.

The leaders demanded the Centre enact legislation to ensure that SCSP and TSP funds are non-divertible and non-lapsable, allocate funds in accordance with population share, and establish a statutory monitoring framework to prevent misuse and return of funds intended for SCs and STs.

On the education front, Gautam and Bhuria pointed to inadequate allocations for student-focused initiatives like ‘Top Class Education’, the ‘National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship’, and ‘SC-ST Hub Centres’, despite a significant portion of SC Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan funds being funneled to institutions such as IITs, NITs, and central universities.

They added that campuses continue to experience caste discrimination, lacking a central law to safeguard the dignity and safety of SC-ST students.