By IANS
New Delhi : Improving the share of Muslims in government jobs, adopting a multi-pronged strategy to address their educational backwardness and new scholarship schemes for Muslim students – these are some of the steps the government has taken to improve the socio-economic and educational status of the community in the country.
Tabling the Rajinder Sachar committee follow-up action report in the Lok Sabha Friday, Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay, termed it as “historic.” He said that a high level panel has been set up to remove the anomalies in the representation of Muslims in parliament and state assemblies.
Antulay said that a National Data Bank would be set up and an autonomous assessment and monitoring authority will analyse the data to suggest to the government appropriate policies on a continuous basis.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said that the seven-page “follow-up” action report did not come out with comprehensive steps to improve the conditions of the 150-million strong Indian Muslim community.
“The Muslim community has been treated with tokenism since Independence. This is also one of them,” CPI-M MP Mohammed Salim told reporters in parliament house.
In its 15-point action plan, the government has proposed “targeted intervention” to improve the basic amenities and employment opportunities in 90 identified minority concentration backward districts. It says appropriate measures will be taken to improve the deficiency in civic amenities in 338 identified Muslim-populated towns and cities.
Easy access to credit to the minorities, more public sector banks in Muslim concentration areas, more micro-financing institutions for Muslim women, more girls-only schools for the minority community, madrassa modernisation programme and scholarship programmes for the students are some of the “follow-up action” the central government claims to have taken.
“Three scholarship schemes are proposed exclusively for the minorities… The corpus of the Maulana Azad Education Foundation will be increased and its operations expanded and streamlined,” Antulay said.
He said dissemination of information regarding health and family welfare schemes will be done in Urdu and regional languages and in districts, blocks and towns with substantial minority population.
“A comprehensive amendment of the Wakf Act is proposed to address existing deficiencies at the earliest. A suitable agency will soon assist in the development of Wakf properties so that the augmented income could be utilised for the purposes intended,” the statement said.
The Sachar report, submitted in parliament in November last year, had brought out shocking details about the poor social, economic and educational status of the minority community. It found that the Muslim literacy rate in the country was below the national average of 64.8 percent and the educational opportunities for them were very poor compared to others in the country.