Data / Quotas / The SC budget: what the Union Budget allocates and spends

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The SC budget: what the Union Budget allocates and spends

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What this shows

What each ministry and department’s budget allocates for the welfare of Scheduled Castes, and what it spent, as Statement 10A gives it for 2024-25 to 2026-27, and the total from 2016-17 as a share of the whole budget and of central schemes.

What it does not show: Who received the money or what it bought: the statement counts the part of each scheme the ministries mark as allocated for SC welfare.

Sources

  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2016-17, Statement 21: Schemes under Scheduled Castes Sub Plan, Statement 21. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2016-17, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2017-18, Statement 10A: Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2017-18, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2018-19, Statement 10A: Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2018-19, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2019-20, Statement 10A: Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2019-20, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2020-21, Statement 10A: Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2020-21, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2021-22, Statement 10A: Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2021-22, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2022-23, Statement 10A: Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2022-23, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2023-24, Statement 10A: Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2023-24, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2024-25, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2025-26, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget 2026-27, Statement 1: Summary of Expenditure, Statement 1. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget Expenditure Profile 2024-2025, Statement 10A: Allocation for welfare of schedule caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget Expenditure Profile 2025-2026, Statement 10A: Allocation for welfare of schedule caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.
  • Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Union Budget Expenditure Profile 2026-2027, Statement 10A: Allocation for welfare of schedule caste, Statement 10A. Primary source.

Analysis by The Dalit Project, as on 9 Oct 2026.

Read these with the numbers

  • Statement 10A counts the part of each scheme the ministries mark as allocated for the welfare of Scheduled Castes. It does not show who received the money or what it bought.
  • Actuals are what the ministries spent under those lines. They do not show how much reached Scheduled Caste households.
  • This piece does not compare the allocation with any target or population-based norm for it. No source for such a norm, and no figures from the portal for the Development Action Plan for Scheduled Castes (DAPSC), under which Ministries earmark funds for SCs, or from advocacy reports, are in hand, so that comparison is left out.
  • For 2016-17 and the years before it, the allocation is the Scheduled Castes Sub Plan (Statement 21), which counted Plan spending only. From 2017-18, when the budget stopped splitting Plan and Non-Plan spending, Statement 10A took its place. Each is the budget’s own measure for its period, but they are not drawn up the same way.
  • Total Expenditure includes interest payments, pensions, defence and transfers to the states, which are not schemes. Central Sector plus Centrally Sponsored Schemes is the spending on schemes. Neither share is a target, and this piece sets no target for either.
  • The statement’s heading reads “Schedule Caste”; this piece uses Scheduled Castes.
  • Scheme names change between years, so schemes are not compared across years here.
  • Figures are in current rupees, not adjusted for inflation.
  • The 2024-25 statement gives Budget Estimates 2023-24 as ₹159,147.79 crore (about US$19 billion at 2023-24 rates); the 2023-24 statement gave ₹159,126.22 crore (about US$19 billion at 2023-24 rates). This piece uses the later figure.
  • The 2025-26 statement gives Budget Estimates 2024-25 as ₹165,500.05 crore (about US$20 billion at 2024-25 rates); the 2024-25 statement gave ₹165,492.72 crore (about US$20 billion at 2024-25 rates). This piece uses the later figure.
  • In the 2026-27 statement, the scheme lines for Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation add up to ₹15,022.83 crore (about US$1.7 billion at 2025-26 rates) for Budget Estimates 2025-2026, but the demand’s total is ₹10,154.90 crore (about US$1.2 billion at 2025-26 rates). The figures are shown as the statement gives them.

Key terms

Statement 10A
The statement in the Union Budget’s Expenditure Profile headed “Allocation for Welfare of Schedule Caste”, listing each ministry and department’s scheme lines for it.
Budget Estimates
What the budget allocates for a year, when it is presented.
Revised Estimates
The allocation for the same year as revised in the next year’s budget.
Actuals
What the ministries spent under those lines, as a later budget reports it.
Demand for grants
The unit the budget is voted in: usually one ministry or department.
Statement 21
Until 2016-17, the statement in the Expenditure Budget listing the schemes under the Scheduled Castes Sub Plan, the part of Plan spending set aside for Scheduled Castes.
Statement 1
The Summary of Expenditure in the Expenditure Profile: the budget’s total spending and its main parts, including Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
Central Sector Schemes
Schemes the Union government runs and pays for itself.
Centrally Sponsored Schemes
Schemes the states run with money from the Union government.

Changelog and corrections

Version 3: Version 3 adds the Grand Total back to 2016-17, from Statement 10A of the budgets 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 and Statement 21 of 2016-17, so Exhibit 1 now has a bar for every year from 2014-15, and sets each year’s allocation against total Union spending and against central schemes, from Statement 1 of every budget 2016-17 to 2026-27. No earlier figure changed. Exhibit 5’s note now says which ministry or department the statement lists Samagra Shiksha, the Flexible Pool for RCH and Umbrella ICDS under. Version 2: Exhibit 1 redrawn as one bar per year: the Budget Estimate as a light bar, the Actuals as a dark bar inside it and the Revised Estimate as a tick, with the share spent printed at the end of each row; its title gives the latest share spent. No figure changed. Version 1 (released 11 October 2026): Statement 10A for 2024-25, 2025-26, 2026-27, all ministries and departments and every scheme line.

How corrections work. Every change is listed here.

Cite this

The Dalit Project, “The SC budget: what the Union Budget allocates and spends”, version 3, data.dalitproject.org/sc-budget/, as on 9 Oct 2026.