Govt. of A.P. has decided to convene a review meeting at the level of Chief Secretary in order to ensure spending Minorities budget fully and also to review the welfare schemes for the benefits of Minorities. In this meeting a review will also be made about the budget allotted and the expenditure made by the departments of Social Welfares (for SC’s) Tribal Welfare (for ST’s), Backward Classes Welfare(for Bc’s) and Minorities Welfare (for Muslims and other Minority communities).
It has been learnt from reliable sources that this review meeting would be held under the chairmanship of Mr. P.K. Mohanthy, IAS Chief Secretary on 18 May 2013 in which the higher officials of all the welfare departments will participate, they would present the functioning of their respective departments the implementation of various welfare schemes on power point presentation. This is the first meeting to review the implementation of the welfare schemes after Mr. Mohanthy took over as Chief Secretary.
It is said that C.M. Mr. N.Kiran Kumar Reddy has specifically instructed the Chief Secretary to pay special attention to ensure the effective implementation of Welfare schemes and also to make sure that the allotted budget of these departments is appropriately made use of. Govt. has enhanced the budget provision considerably for the welfare schemes pertaining to weaker sections including Minorities this year. In this connection in meeting of Standing Committee of A.P. Assembly for the Department of Social Welfare is scheduled to be held on Tuesday. This is the first time that a Standing Committee has been constituted consisting of the members of a A.P. Legislative Assembly and A.P. Legislative Council on a par with Parliament which will review the budget of these Departments. The proposed meeting of the Standing Committee of the Department of Social Welfare is extra ordinary importance in which the funds allotted for the Welfare schemes belonging to S.C’s, S.T’s, B.C’s and Minorities and the utilization of expenditure will be reviewed. All the relevant Principal Secretaries and Heads of Departments have been invited for this meeting. But the interesting think is that on the one hand Govt. shows its interest in spending the budget allotted for Minorities in an effective way where as on the other hand there is no Principal Secretary to represent the Department of Minorities Welfare.
Principal Secretaries of the Departments of Social Welfare, Tribal Welfare and B.C. Welfare are available to represent their respective Departments but the post of the Principal Secretary of the Department of Minorities Welfare is vacant for the past one month. The Department of Social Welfare has been entrusted with the responsibilities of the Department of Minorities Welfare. The Department of Social Welfare itself is a very large department, how can it concentrate on the affairs of the Departments of Minorities Welfare. The presence of a permanent Principal Secretary of the Department of Minorities Welfare would have been better who could have full grip over the affairs of this department. In the absence of a permanent Principal Secretary of the Department of Minorities Welfare, Mr. Mohd Abdul Waheed, Commissioner of Minorities Welfare will give briefing about the welfare schemes pertaining to Minorities and the amounts spent on them. It would be better if the Govt. appoints a permanent Principal Secretary for the Department of Minorities Welfare, at least before the date of the meeting of the review committee to exhibit the seriousness of the Govt. towards the welfare of Minorities.
–Siasat News