By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: A group of young activists has decided to monitor at the district level all minority welfare schemes started by government agencies, the ones from Ministry of Minority Affairs and Prime Ministers 15 points programme prominent among others.
This was decided in a meeting of Wajahat Habibullah, Chairman, National Commission for Minorities (NCM) and Syeda Bilgrami Imam, member NCM with the activists on February 23. “We had a frank discussion with the chairman and the member of the NCM on a variety of issues related to the problems and obstacles facing development of minorities,” said Faisal Khan from National Alliance for People’s Movement who led the group.
L-R: Syeda Bilgrami Imam and Wajahat Habibullah taking questions from an activist
Talking to TwoCircles.net Faisal Khan said that “After hours of discussion we have decided to initiate some mechanism at the district level to monitor minority development schemes because we realize that government have budget worth crores but there are some loopholes and gaps at the implementation level which need to be monitored and filled.”
Faisal Khan said that Mr. Habibulllah expressed his desire to have a partnership with social organizations working among the minorities so that he could first of all know the ground realities about socio-economic conditions of the minorities and also to create awareness about minority rights among the masses.
Mr. Khan said that “it’s good to fight and criticize the government but it’s also very important to recognize the positive work being done by the government and to make that recognition as a beginning to realize immense possibilities which lie in the idea of partnership with the government.”
Dyan Hussain from Assam put the problems of Assami Muslims before Mr. Wajahat Habibullah. The issue of D voter list and harassment of migrant Bihari labors in Assam by the local residents and police and lack of education and the inaccessibility of the minority schools to the Mid Day meal scheme were few problems he shared in the meeting.
Around 20 activists including Masiul Zahid from Mewat, Haryana, Ehtasham Hashmi from Madhya Pradesh, Asad Ashraf from Bihar, Ahmad Saju from Kerala, Ghufran Khan from UP, Changez Khan from Western UP, Aftab Fazil from Delhi, Mohammad Rabbani from West Bengal discussed problems related to minorities of their respective states before the chairman and the member of the NCM. Maulana Fateh Mohammad Nadwi raised the issue of Madarsa reform in the meeting which was also attended by Prof. VK Tripathi from IIT Delhi.
“Mr. Wajahat Habibullah and Syeda Bilgrami Imam have assured us of complete cooperation from the NCM,” said Mr. Khan adding that he will continue to peruse this proposal on a regular basis.