Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regretted that the Centre’s welfare scheme measures for the minorities could not be communicated to the people and stressed that there is already a scope of improvement.
He appreciated the efforts of his Government towards implementing the recommendations of the Sachar Committee, but maintained, “I have to say with sadness that this could not reach the people.”
The PM was responding to a question as to why the benefits of the schemes intended for minorities were not reaching them and that this could be one of reason that Congress’ grip over minorities has slipped given the results of the recently concluded Assembly elections where candidates faired badly even in seats where there was good number of minority votes.
At a time when issues like reservation for minorities as well as that of granting SC/ST status to Muslims were pending before courts, Singh said, “This is also true that there are some measures which are yet to be taken up. Some issues are pending before courts. Some problems have cropped up due to which certain measures could not be implemented....”
Singh, however, listed measures like scholarships to minority students and special development schemes for them undertaking by the UPA Government under the Prime Minister’s new 15-point programme. He claimed that minorities were benefitting from the Prime Minister’s new 15-point programme, the Multi-Sectoral Development Programme and the various scholarship schemes for minority students.
“Scholarships for minorities have gone up tremendously, Maulana Azad Fellowship has increased substantially and the programme for multi-disciplinary approaches in 90 minority- concentrated districts of our country have been put in place. So enough has been done but I would be the last person to say there is no scope for doing more,” the Prime Minister said.