PL Punia,chairman of the Commission,will attend the inaugural camp in Gorakhpur. Raju Bhai Parmar,former MP from Gujarat and a member of the Commission,will be in charge of the camps. The concluding camp will be held in Sitapur district of Lucknow division.

In the first phase,the camps will be held in all 18 divisional headquarters,followed by the ones in each of the 72 districts, said Punia,Congress MP from Barabanki and chairman of the National Commission for SC.

The Commission,he said,has prepared a booklet detailing various issues concerning the Dalit community,like their Constitutional rights,welfare and employment schemes from the Central and state governments,reservation in government jobs and educational institutions,special component plan and other schemes being run by the Center.

The booklet will also carry detailed information about the legal safeguards they can take to counter the atrocities on them,he added.

There is no political agenda behind this campaign, said Punia. It is an all-India programme being organised simultaneously in all states by the Commission. All state governments have been informed. The Commission is a statutory body and we do not need any approval by the state government for organising awareness camps.

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The Commission,he said,has the requisite infrastructure and manpower and to hold the camps.

The issue is likely to set off another spat between Chief Minister Mayawati and Punia,a former bureaucrat who served as her principal secretary during earlier stints as chief minister in 1995,1997 and 2002. The Mayawati government and the SC Commission have been at loggerheads since October,when Punia took over as its chairman.