Rs 736 crore windfall for Maharashtra’s OBCs and tribes, months ahead of polls

File photo of Devendra Fadnavis | ThePrint

The money is part of a conscious effort by Devendra Fadnavis govt to reach out to the OBC community, which forms 52% of the state’s population.

Mumbai: Months before the Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government Tuesday approved a windfall of Rs 736 crore in various schemes for the state’s Other Backward Classes (OBCs), as well as denotified tribes and nomadic tribes.

Of this total amount, the state cabinet will allocate Rs 250 crore to the Maharashtra State OBC Finance Development Corporation, while the Vasantrao Naik Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes Development Corporation will get Rs 300 crore over three years.

However, the BJP’s Ram Shinde, minister for water conservation, protocol, and backward classes welfare, said it would be wrong to call this a political decision.

“Various sections of these communities voiced these long-pending demands to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who ensured that they are met. We have also tried to do justice to certain communities such as the Wadar and Pardhi communities, which are very small in number,” he said.

Shinde added that his department will issue government resolutions for the schemes and make enrolment forms available on the internet as soon as possible, before the Model Code of Conduct comes into force.

From interest subsidy to hostels

The schemes include an interest subsidy for all OBCs, nomadic tribes and denotified tribes for individual loans up to Rs 10 lakh, and group loans between Rs 10 and Rs 50 lakh.

The government has also increased the limit upto which members of the OBC community can take interest-free loans from the Maharashtra State OBC Finance Development Corporation — from the earlier Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh. The state has also kept aside a corpus for schemes for smaller communities such as the Wadars and Pardhis.

Other schemes approved in Tuesday’s cabinet meeting include a scholarship scheme for girls from the backward classes, and hostels and merit awards for backward class students.

Conscious effort

The BJP has been making conscious efforts to reach out to Maharashtra’s OBCs, a grouping which includes 382 castes and constitutes 52 per cent of the state’s population.

Sections of the community were upset with the state government over its decision to give a 16 per cent quota to the Maratha community, which constitutes about 30 per cent of the population.

Moreover, the Union government’s decision to implement a 10 per cent quota for economically weak upper castes has further irked OBCs. Fadnavis recently said the Maharashtra government would also implement this quota soon.