Bangalore Friday Forum (BFF), a non-profit organization, conducted a talk on “A Karnataka perspective of Sachar Committee Recommendations & the role of advocacy” by Mr. M. A. Basith, member Sachar Committee, here on February 23.
Union Minister for Minority Affairs, K. Rahman Khan, speaking on the occasion claimed that his Ministry was holding periodic review meetings with other Ministries and Departments concerned to monitor the progress in the implementation of the Sachar Committee report.
The Cabinet has just cleared the setting up of Equal Opportunities Commission which envisages the coverage of deprived groups belonging to minorities in the government sector, said Mr. Khan.
He also said, the National Waqf Development Corporation (NAWADCO), which was established in January 2014 with corpus of Rs.500 crore, would assist States and provides both financial and technical support to the Muslim community by developing Waqf properties for educational empowerment.
He said, the Waqf properties would put in place world class facilities such as universities, health care and convention centres. He also highlighted the significance of the role of advocacy in the successful implementation of Sachar recommendations in Karnataka.
“Muslim community remained backward in education and other developments when compared to other communities because of lethargy. Ministry of minority has come-up with various schemes but lack of publicity and awareness among Muslims has failed to reach its beneficiaries. NGOs, Muslim intellectuals, political and religious leaders are also equally responsible to promote it.”
Pointing out the importance of NGOs in creating awareness of governmental schemes, Mr. Khan says, “Either we have religious NGOs such as madrasas or orphanages. We are yet to produce NGOs which work for the upliftment of socio-economic and educational status of the community,” he urged.
Mr. Khan said that his ministry has 900 scholarships and the Moulana Azad fellowship programme but it is ironical that Muslims fail to utilize it. The ministry still has Rs.50 crs left in the budget but has not received applications for University Grants Commission (UGC).
Our community gets active or addresses issues only if they are emotional and sensitive against the Muslims. To achieve success and to raise our status, we need an attitudinal change in our approach. We should also use mosques as communication centres. Indeed it could be the best communication and information centre to the community, he added.
He also said that his ministry has identified 90 Minority Concentration Districts (MCDs) in India and it has been divided into 710 blocks, 66 towns and cities. Every block has a monitoring committee which looks after the development. This year Rs.1250 crs has been allocated for Multi-sectorial Development Programme (MsDP) out of which 75 percent of the amount should be spent for educational development, whereas 10 percent for skill development and an average of Rs.10 crs for infrastructure.
On the occasion, Mr. M. A. Basith presented a Sachar committee report which stated that the participation of Muslims was found to be only three percent in IAS, 1.8 percent in IFS and four percent in IPS. Over all Muslims recorded the second highest incidence of poverty with 31 percent people coming under Below Poverty Line (BPL).
A National Data Bank was set up in the Ministry of Statistics and programme implementation (MOSPI). It also has a website which is monitored by the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MMA).
Assessment and Monitoring Authority (AMA) to analyse data collected and for taking appropriate and corrective policy decisions was set up in the planning commission. And Karnataka could get Monitoring Authority in CM’s Secretariat.
Fifty-three GoK Morarji Desai Residential Schools, 310 women’s hostel and 84 GoK Minority Hostels for boys and 76 for girls have been proposed by MMA in Karnataka.
Multi-sectorial Development Programme (MsDP) was launched in Minority concentrated taluks which include Bidar, Humnabad and Chitapur and in towns like Jamkhandi, Bagalkot, Raichur, Sindhanur, Gangavati, Koppal, Haveri and Hospet.
The Area Intensive and Madrasa Modernisation programme has two schemes to provide quality education and to develop its infrastructure. Rs.182 Crs has been allocated for education and Rs. 28 crs for infrastructure. In Karnataka 80 Madrasas have been sanctioned, out of which only eight Madrasas have got coverage.
RBI issues master circular every year on priority sector lending (PSL) by Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCB) for improving credit facilities for minorities. State level Bankers Committee could be asked to furnish PSL data for Karnataka.
MMA could set up a National Institute at Bangalore for training of minorities in Wakf management, administration, women empowerment, publicity and media, human resource management, gender issues, entrepreneurship, etc.
BFF felicitated Prof. Shaikh Ali, former cricketer Mansur Ali Khan and Rizwan Arshad, president of Youth Congress on the occasion.
N.A. Haris, MLA, SHivajinagar Constituency, Justice Mohammad Anwar, Justice Rajendra were present at the occasion.