By Mohammad Ali, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: After the recent debacle in the UP elections, mainly because Muslim community, which constitute almost 18% of the state, didn’t vote for the Congress party which was almost maddeningly wooing the minority community before the elections, the Rahul Gandhi’s party didn’t appear in the mood to woo minorities (read Muslims) any longer, especially when it comes to taking concrete policy decisions for minorities in the Union Budget.
So the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MMA) had to be satisfied with just two new token schemes with meager allocation and a slight increase of 14% in the total budget of the ministry.
The MMA got Rs. 3,135 crore as its share in the Union General Budget 2012-13 presented by the union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee today. This is an increase of Rs. 385 crore over the budget for 2011-12, which stands at Rs. 2,750 crore.
Pranab Mukherjee allocated just Rs. 4.50 crore for a new scheme to provide free cycles to girl students of class IX with the objective of retention of minority girl students from class IX onwards.
Another new scheme: Skill Development Initiatives has been provided meager Rs. 18 crore in the Budget to allow urban and rural livelihoods to improve for inclusive growth by providing skill to the Minority communities who do not posses any, to allow them to gain employment.
It’s important to note here that a vast number of communities belonging to minorities specially Muslims are engaged in occupations embroidery, tailor, zari work, bangle, leather work, which come under the category of skill development programmes, for which only 18 crore has been allocated.
The Budget 2012-13 increases significantly the outlay for educational scholarship schemes being implemented by the Ministry for the students belonging to minorities.
The money for Pre-Matric Scholarship has been increased from Rs. 540 crore to Rs. 810 crore; Post-Matric scholarship gets Rs. 450 crore – up from Rs. 405 crore; Merit-cum-means scholarship scheme gets Rs. 198 crore – as against Rs. 126 crore during 2011-12.
Provision for Maulana Azad National Fellowship for Minority students has been enhanced from Rs. 47 crore to Rs. 63 crore.
Rs. 45 crore each have been provided for i) Scheme for promotion of education in 100 Minority Concentration towns/cities; and ii) Village Development Programme for 1,000 villages not covered under Minority Concentration Blocks/ Minority Concentration Districts.