Dalit groups in Jaipur on Friday demanded 16% reservation for Scheduled Castes in the Chief Minister’s Jan Awas Yojana for economically weaker sections, while citing a recent instance of cancellation of allotment of a house to a Dalit woman.
The allotment in Dausa district was cancelled despite the signing of sale deed and other formalities having been completed.
The woman, Maya Devi, has alleged in her complaint lodged at Ashok Nagar police station here that the colonisation firm, which had built flats under the integrated housing scheme at Lalsot bypass road in Dausa, had cancelled her allotment when its officials came to know of her Dalit identity.
“The board of directors decided in a meeting that my allotment should be cancelled, as the presence of my family in the residential colony would harm the firm’s reputation and desecrate the locality,” Ms. Devi said. Police registered a first information report against the firm’s office-bearers earlier this week.
The Centre for Dalit Rights (CDR) and Rajasthan Valmiki Vikas Manch demanded immediate action in the matter, in addition to fixing a 16% quota for the SC communities in the housing scheme. “The mindset of builders is outrageous... They have brazenly flouted the norms of a government scheme launched for the benefit of the poor,” CDR chief patron P.L. Mimroth said.
The FIR has been registered under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955. Mr. Mimroth demanded arrest of the accused and measures for protection of the complainant and witnesses in the case.
Valmiki Vikas Manch president Rakesh Valmiki said the State government should take up a study to find out how many plots, flats and houses had been denied to Dalits because of their caste.
