IANS | 27 Sep, 2022
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday called upon public
sector banks to enhance coverage of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in all
schemes and advised them to also look into their needs for capacity
building and entrepreneurship development, as the community constitutes
about 18 per cent of the total workforce of in banks and financial
institutions.
Sitharaman gave these directions during a
review meeting of various Central financial schemes being implemented by
state-owned banks and their coverage towards the SCs.
During the
meeting, which was attended by chiefs of all public sector banks and
officials of the department of financial services as well as chairperson
of the National Commission for SCs, the Finance Minister directed them
to make proper digital records for jobs being outsourced, especially for
posts like safai karamcharis, from October 1, 2022.
She
emphasised on redressal of all pending grievances pertaining to the SC
community and asked them to take these up on priority through special
drives from October 2 onwards.
The minister also asked banks to fill up all backlog vacancies at the earliest and in a time-bound manner.
Banks
were also directed to ensure forward and backward linkages through
convergence of various schemes of different government departments for
SCs while giving them financial assistance.
The Finance
Minister said that the objective of the meeting was to bring all
stakeholders on a common platform to work together in the fulfilment of
the rights enshrined in the Constitution for the upliftment and
betterment of the people belonging to Scheduled Castes.
