By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,
Mumbai: The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government in Maharashtra has decided to make provision for reservation for the minorities in all housing schemes of the state government.
This was announced by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. He was speaking in the workshop titled “The Participation of the Minorities in the National Mainstream” which was organized by the Ministry of Minority Welfare.
He said that soon there will be some amendments in the laws of the Maharashtra Area Housing Development Authority (MAHDA) to provide reservation to minorities in housing schemes.
Emphasizing on the need for education in the minorities, he said that besides learning Urdu, it is also very important for the Muslim students to learn Marathi. Learning Marathi will give them access to the government jobs, as Marathi is the language of the state.
The chief minister admitted the fact that the situation of Muslims in the state is not good. He said that in order to eradicate their financial and educational backwardness, the government has planned to start 20 ITI educational institutions in the textile cities like Bhiwandi and Malegaon.
He said that there is an urgent need to bring the minorities into the national mainstream and his government is committed to this objective. That is why a separate ministry has been created for this very purpose with the allocation of Rs 1000 crore.
He further pointed out that with the purpose of modernization of madrasas in the state, a Madrasa Board will be established by the state government. But there won’t be any kind of interference in the working of the madrasas by the state.
The Home Minister of the state, R.R. Patil said the government is committed to the safety and security of the Muslims. There should not be any sense of insecurity among them.
Patil further pointed out that the community needs to work a lot on the matter of education in the community as the drop out rate of the community is much higher than that of the other communities of the state.