2 years on, BBMP may finally use outlay for transgenders

BENGALURU: Two and a half years after it allocated Rs two crore for the welfare of transgenders in its annual budget, the

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike

(BBMP) is finally moving towards spending that money.

A few weeks ago, the welfare department drafted a set of schemes for transgenders covering areas like health, education,

self-employment

and

skill development

. On being approved by the standing committee for social justice and welfare, a notification was sent to the eight zonal joint commissioners, asking them to implement the schemes by making use of the fund, which was reduced by 50% to Rs one crore in this year’s budget.

“We couldn’t utilise the fund earlier as there were no guidelines from the government on the kind of programmes we should run and implement. While the allocation was made in the 2016-17 budget, it was carried over in the 2017-18 budget, but was reduced to Rs 1 crore this year. However, if there’s a need for more money while implementing the project, we can ask the committee,” said an official from the department.

Last year, then mayor Sampath Raj had met activists and representatives from the transgender community to discuss the non-utilisation of funds. He claimed that on checking with the officials concerned he was told that the plan had hit a roadblock as most transgenders lacked the requisite identity and address documents.

The schemes include scholarships for students, funding for medical treatment, self-employment opportunities in terms of buying vehicles and skill-development activities. Since the sum has to be divided among the eight zones, each will get a measly Rs 12.5 lakh.

Ruing that the amount was too small to be of any real use, Uma, activist and founder of Jeeva, an NGO that works for the rights of gender minorities, said: “We’ve met almost all the mayors who have been in power over the past few years to discuss the fund utilisation. Despite that, they’ve decided to go ahead with schemes like scholarships for students, which will not benefit many from our community as they tend to drop out at the PU level.”

According to Uma, transgenders want support for sex-change surgeries as well as self-employment. “We have asked for space in BBMP’s shopping complexes to run small businesses,” she added.