In yet another move to appease the religious minorities, the Government has created a think-tank to oversee the implementation of their policies and projects.
Comprising of intellectuals, religious scholars and technical experts from the six notified religious minorities, the Ministry of Minority Affairs has put together the National Monitoring Committee to assess the achievements and review its planning process, programmes, strategies and implementation process over a period of time.
“We need inputs from all sections of the minorities, particularly for the development projects,” said K Rahman Khan, minister for minority affairs. Khan was addressing the first meet of the newly created committee. “Since minorities are a heterogeneous group, their needs and aspirations are different and can’t be studied or understood under a common lens,” he said.
Khan said that the needs of Jains, which have been recently identified as a religious identified group could never be similar to the Muslims as the former were not just monetarily superior but also their literacy rate was much higher. “The need for Jains to be identified as a religious minority was for identity and not for winning any monetary favours or scholarships from the government,” he said.
The committee is expected to examine the various programmes launched for the minorities over seven years. “Since we are a fairly new ministry and our policies are yet in the phase of trials, and none is perfect to meet demands of all six minorities, we need fine-tuning and more direction,” said Khan.
Khan also directed the newly formed committee to work in sync with the National Commission for Minorities. “We need the committee to come out with a definite action plan which will come to the rescue of all minorities,” he said. “In due course of time, we may also form six sub-committees for overseeing the needs of all six religious minorities,” said Khan.