By Rajeev Ranjan Roy, IANS,
New Delhi : With the government gearing to deploy officials from the minorities in areas they dominate, community leaders have said that welfare of minorities should not be linked to the “religion of bureaucrats” and sought better implementation of welfare measures for their economic and educational betterment.
“The government must ensure effective implementation of welfare and other programmes meant for the minorities. A proper monitoring mechanism should be put in place if the government really intends to help them,” S.Q.R. Ilyas, spokesperson of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), told IANS.
Reliable government sources told IANS that the central government had decided to send officials from the minority communities to areas of their concentration to expedite the implementation of schemes meant for them.
The sources said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had sent a communiqué to the ministries of health, education and home affairs seeking detailed guidelines to post officials from minority communities in pockets where they are in a majority.
Ilyas said that merely sending Muslims or officials from other minorities would not serve much purpose unless there were serious attempts to implement recommendations of the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee and the Justice Rangnath Mishra Commission.
“The welfare of minorities should not be linked to the religion of officials or bureaucrats. Justice Sachar does not belong to a minority community but came out with comprehensive suggestions to uplift the minorities,” said Ilyas.
“A move to post Muslim officials in Muslim-dominated areas can be counter productive as well. Instead the government should implement the existing schemes effectively,” Niaz Faruqui, secretary of the Jamiatul-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH), told IANS.
The government has earmarked Rs.10 billion for 2008-09 as the budgetary plan allocation for the all-round development of minorities, who account for over 18 percent of the country’s total population.
“How can the government ensure that Muslim officials will take the benefits of development to people’s doorsteps? There is a need to adopt a holistic approach,” one member of the National Commission for Minorities told IANS while requesting anonymity.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee in March 2005 to evaluate the socio-economic and educational status of the minorities, in particular Muslims.
In its report, the committee brought out widespread illiteracy and poverty among minorities and recommended among other things setting up an autonomous assessment monitoring authority (AMA) for the schemes meant for minorities.
The Justice Mishra-led National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM), in its report of May 2007, favoured inclusion of Dalit coverts into Scheduled Castes (SC) fold.
Justice Mishra recommended a sub-quota of 8.4 percent for minorities within the 27 percent OBC quota and reservation to Dalit minorities by including the converts within the 15 percent SC quota.