By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Patna: Darbhanga with heavy population of Muslims is a Minority Concentration District (MCD) which comes under the Central Government-run Multi-sectoral Development Program (MsDP), the multi-billion-rupee exclusive program for MCDs, to improve the lot of the minority community. Are MsDP projects addressing the real problems of the locals? Let’s check what’s happening on the ground.
One of seven MCDs in Bihar and ninety in the country, Darbhanga, about 150 kms north-east of Patna, has 20-25% Muslim population. Ask local Muslims to list their top three problems, and they will put it: poverty/unemployment, inaccessibility to education/higher education and poor road and drainage system in Muslim localities.
“The basic problems of the local Muslims are poverty and inaccessibility to education particularly higher education – because of poverty and lack of infrastructure,” says Prof Muhammad Nehal of Dept of Physics, Mithila University in the town. He is more concerned about inaccessibility of the local Muslims to higher education.
“Being a person associated with and involved in academic activities here in Darbhanga, in my view the most important point is inaccessibility to the facilities which are required for education, especially higher education. Muslims are deprived essentially of higher education that comes in way of their growth educationally and economically,” Prof Nehal elaborates talking to TwoCircles.net.
Scene of a classroom at Hajjan Bibi Sughra Hassan Memorial Girls High school in Darbhanga [TCN photo: By Mudassir Rizwan]
Prof Makki Ansari, Reader, Dept of Zoology, Marwari College, Darbhanga, shares Prof Nehal’s views. There is no higher education infrastructure for minorities here, he says.
“There is no higher education infrastructure for minorities like mass communication or management courses etc. There are no such institutions from where minority students could go to higher education,” Prof Makki says. He also points to another big problem.
“The minority areas specially lack civic amenities. Roads are in dilapidated condition. There is no proper drainage system in such localities,” he says.
Not only academicians, politicians also have the same views.
Sultan Ahmed is former MLA from Darbhanga town. Major problems facing the minority community are unemployment and lack of proper facilities for education, he says.
“Unemployment, lack of proper road and drainage in minority areas, and no proper government facilities for education are the major problems confronting the community,” says Sultan Ahmed. In the context of lack of proper educational facilities he mentions the case of Millat College for whose minority status a movement has been recently launched locally.
“Millat College was set up in 1956 but due to financial reasons it was let to be undertaken by the university. People had then thought the move will help improve and develop the college in terms of more land, buildings and faculties but they were disappointed as the government did nothing to improve and develop the college,” Ahmed says and reasons it for the launch of minority status movement.
After hearing the locals, one can guess the Central Government must be running some projects, under MsDP for MCDs, to alleviate the real problems and concerns of the local people. But this is not.
Sun setting on the erstwhile Darbhanga Maharaj Palace [TCN photo: By Mudassir Rizwan]
Are there any MsDP projects here for poverty alleviation or to improve education infrastructure? “So far the project of Government of India is concerned the idea (special programs for minority districts) is very good but the problem is that when it comes to implementation of those ideas I find lots of lacunae and lots of problems. It is very unfortunate that being a person who lives in Darbhanga, who moves in Darbhanga I have not found anything worth mentioning which actually goes to touch the problems of Muslim minority in Darbhanga which has been selected a Muslim dominated area,” says Prof Nehal.
Ex-MLA Sultan Ahmed says the Congress-led UPA had selected Darbhanga as MCD, and sanctioned amount to improve the situation, but the amount has not been spent. “Had the amount been spent, the situation of education, electricity, sanitation and health would have improved,” says Ahmed. But perhaps he does not know that the amount which he mentions has not been sanctioned for any of those problems which he counts.
Under MsDP, the central government sanctioned only two projects worth Rs 1200 lakh for Darbhanga in the fiscal year 2008-09. Rs 599.81 lakh is to be spent under Indira Awas Yojna to build 2285 units of home and Rs 600 lakh on the construction of 200 Anganwadi centres. The government released only 50% of the sanctioned amount on 06-02-2009. The second installment has not been released by 16-04-2010.
Aren’t these projects going to help improve the lives of Muslims? Prof Makki Ansari says: “Anganwadi and Indira Awas are also necessary but most important for Muslims is higher education infrastructure.”
Prof Nehal puts a counter-question and himself answers: Are Indira Awas and Anganwadi Muslim specific programs? “Certainly not, so how come are these projected as for Muslims. Where are the programs which are going to touch the plight of Muslims? Unless those programs are there in the picture and implemented on the land I don’t think it is going to help us.”
While the locals raise the issue of poverty, education and health the government has not sanctioned a penny for such subjects.
Darbhanga falls under Category A in the list of 90 Minority Concentration Districts in the country. According to government classification, the Category A – which has 53 MCDs – has districts which have both socio-economic and basic amenities parameters below national average. Yet, the government has no projects to improve road, sanitation and drainage system in Darbhanga – the Muslim dominated district.