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Majority Of Minority Backward In Your State, Centre Tells Bengal

By Unregistered Visitors, Section News
Posted on Thu Aug 09, 2007 at 05:09:41 AM EST

The West Bengal government has come under central scanner for neglecting issues relating to minorities. In a recent communiqué to chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb, Union secretary for minority affairs M N Prasad has noted that 12 out of West Bengal's 19 districts have been identified as backward minority concentration districts, wherein both socio-economic and basic amenity parameters are below the national average.

The minority affairs ministry has identified 90 such minority concentration districts across the country. In his letter, the secretary has urged the state government to prepare plans so that these districts get requisite attention and resources. The Centre is also in the process of conducting a baseline survey in these 90 districts to identify developmental deficits, so that they can formulate a multi-sectoral development plan. Clearly jittery with the numbers, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will shortly hold an emergency meeting which will be attended by public representatives, MPs, MLAs, NGOs and eminent people from minority communities from these 12 districts. The objective is to finalise a road map for minority uplift in the state. The 12 districts demarcated by the ministry include North and South Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas, Burdwan, Coochbehar, Howrah and Kolkata. The state government is slated to finalise the nitty gritty of the draft action plan on minorities after getting inputs from various representatives.

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The draft action plan incidentally takes into account specific problems of state minorities and aims to enhance their social, economic, and educational status, which would, in turn, help them integrate with the mainstream. Emphasis is being given to strengthen madrasa education. West Bengal has 508 recognised madrasas and several hundred unrecognised ones. The state plans to upgrade 225 madrasas to the status of universities, where focus would be on professional and vocational training programmes. The scope for education loans will also be extended. The state government has so far provided Rs 3 crore as interest free education loan to 460 students.

The state government also proposes to provide minority families income generating assets through a mix of bank credit and subsidy. It was also decided that a certain percentage of financial targets would be earmarked for beneficiaries belonging to minorities living below the poverty line (BPL) under several urban employment programmes.

Incidentally, the West Bengal Minorities Development & Finance Corporation (WBMDFC) has provided term and cluster loans to 43, 977 youth amounting to Rs 165 crore and micro credit to 10, 945 women amounting to Rs 3.90 crore. The government also wants to ensure that benefits of various pension schemes are equitably provided to minorities in proportion to the population in the state.

In addition to these credit facilities, attempts are being made by the government to ensure that a sizeable percentage of priority sector lending, like agricultural loans, loans to small scale industries, retail trade, educational loans, will be made available to minorities. In an effort to increase recruitment of people from minority community and to ensure that they are not discriminated against in the case of employment under state government, it will be mandatory to have one minority member in all selection committees and boards that recruit more than 10 persons and also in all service commissions.

By: Ecnomics Times

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