By Abdul Hameed, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: With an aim to create awareness among people about various government policies and welfare schemes introduced especially after the Sachar Committee report, Bombay University and College Teachers Union (BUCTU) organized a workshop today in collaboration with Anjuman-I-Islam and local people of Central Mumbai.
Representatives of different NGOs, teachers and students attended the workshop held in Alma Latifi Hall of Saboo Siddik College and discussed the findings of Sachar Committee report from various aspects and the ways to get benefits from subsequent schemes meant for educational and economic developments of minorities.
Fareed Khan, general secretary of Qaumi Majlis-e-Shura said it was sorrowful that the recommendations of the Sachar Committee are still unimplemented. ‘Since the general elections are at hand we should resolve now to vote only for the party that makes the implementation of Sachar Committee report part of their manifesto.’
Suggesting inclusion of non-Muslims in the struggle for the implementation of Sachar Committee report Husain Dalwai of Maulana Azad Vichar Manch said people should be told that the implementation of the report will benefit non-Muslims too. ‘If any welfare scheme is introduced for a Muslim dominated area the non-Muslim residents will naturally get benefit,’ he said.
He also said that in the light of the recommendations of Sachar Committee a national ‘equal opportunity commission’ has been set up by the central government. ‘Now there is the need that the commission should be constituted on state level also.’
Describing educational backwardness the biggest hurdle to the development, Chairman of Maulana Azad Minority Financial Development Corporation, Ameen Patel, said that Maharashtra is the biggest state to have the most educational loans. He said the conditions for getting loans have been made very easy. ‘Earlier the forms were given on payment of 25 rupees. But now they are distributed free of cost and even the Xerox forms also can be submitted.’ ‘This year we got 8,500 applications for educational loans. Earlier the number of such application would be only 500 hundred.’