welfare expenditures for SC/ST (~100 billion USD in last 10 years)

Hey folks,

I’ve been digging into some figures on government spending on welfare programs for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes over the past decade for a research paper. It’s super tricky to nail down a single “all-inclusive” number (thanks to the patchwork of schemes and different budgeting methods), but here’s a rough guestimate based on what I found:

• Over the five-year period from 2014–15 to 2019–20, direct spending on targeted SC/ST schemes seems to have been around Rs 3.8 lakh crore.
• Extrapolating that to cover a full 10-year period, it looks like we might be talking roughly Rs 7.5–8 lakh crore in total, which translates to about USD 90–100 billion (using an exchange rate of around Rs 82 per dollar).

I’m curious—what do you all think about these numbers? And on a related note, I’d love to put together an estimate covering spending since independence. Does anyone have reliable sources or figures for the earlier decades?

Let’s discuss—any insights, additional sources, or corrections are welcome!