The 21st Party Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) takes serious exception to the blatantly exclusionary and discriminatory policies being followed by successive Central Governments towards the rights and entitlements of the people of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. As a consequence of neo-liberal policy, the people of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes have also had to face a reduction of their legitimate share in national resources. Whereas Governments are mandated to ensure allocations in budgetary resources for the development and welfare of the people of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes equal to their proportion in the population, that is, 16.6 per cent for Scheduled Castes and 8.6 per cent for Scheduled Tribes, over the years, the Government has allocated less than 50 per cent of the required proportion. In this year alone, the Modi Government has further cut allocations for the Scheduled Caste Special Component Plan (SCSCP) and the shortfall is as high as Rs 46,385 crore. The shortfall in allocations for the Tribal Sub-Plan the shortfall is an equally shocking figure, Rs 20,000 crore. Thus, while the population of Scheduled Castes and Tribes as a proportion of the total population is around 25 per cent, the share of allocations to Scheduled Castes and Tribes, which were at an all-time low this year, was just 10 percent. A calculation of the actual expenditures in just two budgets, those of 2012-3 and 2013-4 show that the combined shortfall in allocations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes was as high as Rs 1.34 lakh crore. While Dalits and Adivasis are denied funds, corporates and the rich get tax concessions worth lakhs of crores of rupees in every budget. In addition, even such allocations as are made are often not used directly for the development of Dalits and Adivasis, but are categorized as indivisible funds and diverted to general schemes. In spite of the mandatory reservation in jobs for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in Government and public sector undertakings, there is a huge backlog. According to the Ministry for Personnel the backlog in 2011 in the Government sector for Scheduled Castes was 24,779 posts. Vacancies for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would be much higher if Group A, B, and C were calculated along with vacancies in State Governments and the public sector. Employment for Dalits and Adivasis in the public sector has been affected by multiple factors. These include the ban on recruitment imposed by the Central Government on its departments, the abolition of many posts, the abolition of Group D and the subcontracting of almost all work done in the group D category in which the Scheduled Castes and Tribes were over-represented, the privatisation of a host of services and sectors, and the increase in public-private-participation projects. Given these factors, further steps to ensure employment for Scheduled Castes and Tribes are clearly required. It should be mandatory for all private-sector and public-private-sector employment to introduce reservations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. The 21st Party Congress of the CPI(M) demands that • reservation for SCs and STs be extended to the private sector through appropriate legislation; and that • allocations for SCSCP and TSP be made mandatory through an appropriate law. The Party Congress calls upon all units of the Party to take up these issues and build public pressure to force the Government to fulfill these demands.