Ahmedabad: Gujarat’s Finance Minister Nitin Patel on Tuesday presented a budget of over Rs 2 Lakh crores for the financial budget sources said.
Although the budget was allotted, yet again the minority community in Gujarat has been ignored with no budget allotment as this privilege has been denied again to all the minority communities in Gujarat, Caravan Daily reports.
In addition to this, the government has also refused to implement central schemes that are specifically meant for minorities in the state.
“While taking oath, he had showered a lot of love for the minorities but not a single paisa has been allocated for them in the budget which had been presented yesterday, and neither is there any mention of the word minority,” Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani tweeted on 2 July.
Shamshad Pathan and Mir Khan two social activists from Gujarat said the Minorities have not been receiving the allotment for quite a very long time now and that none of the political parties nor the secular parties have addressed the issue.
“Since Modi has been the chief minister, nothing has been allocated for Muslims. Yet, parties like Congress which incurs votes from Muslims never speak on such issues either,” said Ahmedabad-based activist Shamshad Pathan.
He further added that the Gujarat government under Modi has always ignored the welfare of the minority community along with refusing to implement Centre’s minority scholarship program.
“If the government is not willing to implement the Centre’s scheme for the minorities, how can we expect them to allocate budget for them,” said Pathan the only voice to question the minority rights in the past.
Another activist Mir Khan working with the NGO Buniyad in Sabar Ghata is said to have called the Gujarat government and its bureaucrats ‘communal’ and ‘anti-minority’.
With no budget allocation to minorities in the state, even the developmental programs of the Central government are not implemented.
“Whatever allocation there is for the minority, it is from the Central government. But no structure has been developed at state and district levels for utilizing any of those for minority welfare. The government officers, who know everything about these schemes, also refuse to disclose any information about the same”, claimed Khan.