J&K Govt to give Rs 2.5 lakh incentive for every inter-caste marriage involving a dalit

The Jammu & Kashmir Government has unveiled a scheme to give Rs 2.5 lakh to every inter-caste marriage involving a dalit.

An order in possession of news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) reveals that UT administration has come up with a scheme to incentivize inter-caste marriage involving a dalit.

The scheme has been unveiled after the Administrative Council gave a go-ahead for the same. The Centre had also unveiled a similar scheme in 2017.

The scheme has been framed for implementation of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1995 and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities), Act 1989.

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To avail benefits of the scheme, one of the spouses in the inter-marriage caste should belong to schedule caste community as mentioned under Scheduled Caste List (out of 13 Castes) specified in The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 C.O.19 for Jammu and Kashmir and the other is a non-scheduled caste Hindu.

As per guidelines of the scheme, the marriage should be valid as per the law and duly registered under the Hindu Marriage Act-1955 and a registration certificate to this effect issued by the competent authority must be furnished by the beneficiaries.

The order states that the age criteria of marriage should be as per prescribed law.

The case for assistance shall only be valid if submitted strictly within six months from the date of marriage, as indicated on the marriage registration certificate produced at the time of submission of application.

“The couples who have already received incentive from the Dr. Ambedkar Foundation, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment or any other State/UT shall not be eligible for incentive under this scheme,” the guidelines state.

The guidelines further state that the total amount of incentive will be released to the eligible couple in a single installment through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode to the joint account of the couple in any government/nationalized bank in the form of fixed deposit (FD) with a lock-in period of three years.

“At the time of maturity of the fixed deposit i.e. after completion of 3 years the couple has to submit a joint undertaking to the bank regarding the successful sustenance of marriage clearly depicting that no marital dispute or legal proceedings are going on between the couple after which the bank will provide them the option of withdrawing the amount or continuing the fixed deposit under an intimation to the sanctioning authority. In case the beneficiary couple fails to produce the joint undertaking regarding the same it will be the responsibility of the Bank concerned to return and remit the total amount along with interest to Government account under intimation to sanctioning authority,” the order further states—(KNO)