Revision as of 14:15, 12 December 2015

Plan funds for Minorities: India

Only 5% of Plan funds spent on minorities Ambitious Scheme Launched To Provide Better Housing, Education Comes A Cropper

Times of India

One of the significant steps of the first UPA government was to initiate action on the festering issue of exclusion and backwardness amongst minority communities in India, especially the Muslims. As the Sachar Committee had revealed in November 2006, Muslims had a shocking poverty rate of over 31% (compared to the national average of about 22%) and, at 15%, unemployment among Muslim graduates was double that of the majority community.

Representation in civil services, central and state government service, armed forces and judiciary was less than 5% (though Muslims make up over 13% of the population) and ownership of assets or land was proportionally less than others. Clearly, special attention was needed to set this situation right.

The UPA government created a new ministry of minority affairs in 2006 to implement a slew of schemes addressing the problems of backwardness and poverty among Muslims primarily, but also among other minorities. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a refurbished 15-point program for educational and vocational deficits among Muslims. In 2007, the government surveyed and identified 90 Muslim concentration districts (MCDs). An ambitious multi-sectoral development plan (MSDP) was launched to provide better housing, sanitation, education, healthcare, credit facilities, employment opportunities etc to minority community members.

MSDP has emerged as the chief vehicle of delivering the UPA government’s promises to remove the developmental deficit of the Muslim community out of the total allocation of Rs 1,756 crore to the ministry of minority affairs in 2009-10, the MSDP alone drew Rs 889.5 crore, that is, over 56% of the ministry’s funds. A performance analysis of this ambitious scheme, done by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), shows that it appears to be floundering.

Of the 90 Muslim concentration districts, 16 have yet to formulate a plan under MSDP. As of September 2009, project activities worth Rs 1,562 crore had been sanctioned for the remaining 74 districts, but only Rs 77 crore had actually been spent, according to data collected by CBGA. That’s just 5% of the total sanctioned amount. For the 11th Plan (2007-12), a total of Rs 2,750 has been set aside for the MSDP. After half the period has already gone by, the expenditure amounts to just 2.8% of the total.

As per a later but incomplete report of the Data Monitoring Unit of the ministry, covering 44 of the 90 MCDs, expenditure till December 2009 had improved slightly, but still stood at a shocking 17% of the total funds available with the districts. In most states, funds for 2009-10 were being released in December 2009.

For current year, just 3,201 houses had been built out of a target of 205,260 for Muslim families, under the Indira Awas Yojana, just 1,523 handpumps had been installed out of the targeted 14,020, only 5 health centers had been built from a target of 1,715, and only 20 anganwadi centers had been built out of 18,970 targeted, according to the ministry’s report.

The main reason behind the pathetic performance is lack of trained and adequate staff, infrastructure and planning at the district and state levels, says CBGA. While involvement of panchayati raj institutions may give the needed impetus to implementation, the UPA government needs to do a reality check on its lofty promises.

UPA’S Minority Report

Minority education

2013-15: Scholarships, madrassas, skill development

The Times of India, Dec 09 2015

Bharti Jain

Big jump in loans, scholarships to minorities as govt fights extremism

4 Madrassas To Help Youth Develop Skills

Four madrassas across Bihar and Maharashtra have volunteered to impart skill development training to 1,200 Muslim youth each by integrating with the government-run Maulana Azad National Academy for Skills (MANAS). Skill training projects have already started at three madrassas in Bihar and a Mumbaibased madrassa under MANAS, a special purpose vehicle established in November 2014 to address skill develop ment needs of minorities and ensure their sustainable ivelihood, with emphasis on self-employment. The four madrassas that have started the skill train ng projects are Hussaini Masjid Darul madrassa, Bhandup, Mumbai; Idara-eSharia Khajur Banna, Patna; Anjuman Islamia madrassa, Motihari, Bihar; and Islamia Anjuman Rafagul Musla min, East Champaran.

MANAS aims to integrate madrassas with skill development on a voluntary basis.Home ministry officials say the training of youth in madrassas through clerics will help the government reach out to minority youth and deter them from being influenced by radical groups such as Islamic State. Incidentally, the government's counter-radi calisation strategy is aimed at engaging impressionable Muslim youth through community elders and religious heads, apart from ensuring their employability.

Incidentally, minority youth are also being provided youth are also being provided placement-linked skill development under the minority affairs ministry's “Seekho aur Kamao“ initiative. As many as 20,980 trainees were sanctioned for training under the scheme in the first seven months of 2015-16, surpassing the figure of 19,169 youth trained in entire 2014-15. In 2013-14, during UPA regime, 19,516 youth were trained under this programme.

Similarly , loans given at concessional rates to minorities by the National Minorities Development & Finance Corporation in 2015-16 until October 2015 totaled Rs 221.44 crore, as compared to Rs 431.20 crore through 201415 and Rs 325 crore in 2013-14.However, number of beneficiaries are fewer at 35,429 in the current financial year (until October) as compared to 1,08,752 in 2014-15.

Meanwhile, the amount of scholarships offered to minority students too has registered a 16% increase in 2014-15, with total disbursements at Rs 2,066.33 as compared to Rs 1,781.74 crore in 2013,14. While pre-matric scholarships rose 17% to Rs 1,129.27 crore over this period, post-matric scholarships were down 2.8% to Rs 501.28 crore, merit-cum-means based scholarships up 46.6% to Rs 381.37 crore and Maulana Azad National scholarship for girl students up by 29.2% to Rs 54.51 crore in 2014-15.