By TwoCircles.net staff reporter
New Delhi: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had plans for boosting employment for minorities in the Railways Budget for 2008-09.
Indian Railways, the biggest employer of the world, has only about 2% Muslims on its payroll. Only 30,000 of 140,000 railways employees are Muslims.
To boost minorities representation in Indian Railways, Railway Ministry has issued directions for setting up minority cell in Railway Board and all Zonal Railways, informed Lalu Prasad. The cell will promote minorities’ welfare and monitor their representation in railway services. All the recruitment boards and committees will have one member from the minority community.
The plan to boost Muslim representation also includes publishing recruitment notices in Urdu newspapers. These advertisements will be published in Urdu newspapers of the states which have declared Urdu as the second official language.
Instructions have also been issued to permit Urdu as another medium for examinations for Group D posts in those states.
Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh recognize Urdu as one of the official languages.