Definition

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,— (a) “Development Action Plan” means the Development Action Plan for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes approved by the State Council; (b) "Empowered Committee" means the Committee constituted under section 5; (c) "exempted expenditure" means the expenditure on salary, salary grants-in-aid, pension, administrative establishment, capital expenditure, principal repayment, interest payment and any other expenditure of administrative nature as may be notified by the Government and it includes the amounts that could not be spent due to non-release or short release of funds by the Union Government for Central Sector Schemes and Centrally Sponsored Schemes; (d) "gaps in development" means the shortfall in such development indices, as may be prescribed, pertaining to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in comparison to the State average; (e) "General Schemes" means schemes included in the Statement of Welfare Expenditure which benefit all the social groups in the State including the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes; (f) "Scheduled Castes” and “Scheduled Tribes" shall have the same meaning assigned to them, in clauses (24) and (25), respectively, of Article 366 of the Constitution of India; (g) "Special Schemes" means schemes included in the Statement of Welfare Expenditure which exclusively benefit the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the State; (h) "State" means the State of Tamil Nadu; (i) "State Council" means the Tamil Nadu State Council for the Development of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes constituted under section 3; (j) “Statement of welfare expenditure” means the statement published by the Government which contains the sector wise abstract of the welfare expenditure and the budgetary allocations for various welfare schemes; (k) "total welfare expenditure outlay of the State" means overall sum of the budgetary allocation made for the schemes listed in the Statement of welfare expenditure.