Fund utilisation of minority schemes slowed amid Covid pandemic, shows data

The pandemic seems to have dented the pros­p­ects of beneficiaries hoping to enrol in minority sche­mes. While the fund utilisation under minority schemes had reached its peak in 2019-20, with the government spending Rs 6,575 crore, it has since declined. In 2020-21, the government spent Rs 6,320 crore on minority benefit schemes and in 2021-22, it could only spend Rs 6,437 crore — an increase of just 1.9 per cent.

Although minority schemes had received a big fillip in 2017-18, with the fund allocation increasing 46.8 per cent, growth since then has been negligible. A Business Standard analysis found that the average growth rate of fund utilisation has been just 1 per cent in the last four years. In some instances, the government has been spending less than it spent in 2017-18.

In the case of educational empowerment schemes, for example, government data indicates that spending had increased 72 per cent between 2016-17 and 2017-18 from Rs 1,262 crore to Rs 2,170 crore. Since then, it has only grown 1.2 per cent in the next four years. Of these four, spending on educational empowerment declined in two years. In 2021-22, utilisation on educational empowerment schemes had reduced by 4.3 per cent over the previous year.

A similar situation obtains with economic empowerment schemes, with expenditures declining in two of four years. While skill development programmes for minorities have seen a 41 per cent increase compared to last year, other government schemes such as Nai Manzil and Nai Roshni targeted toward women empowerment amongst minorities have seen a decline in expenditures.

Infrastructure development has suffered a hit due to the pandemic. In 2019-20, the government had spent Rs 1,698 crore via the Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram (PMJVK), but in 2021-22, expenditures had come down to Rs 1,222 crore.

An evaluation conducted by Niti Aayog last year found that while the PMJVK was well aligned to address the concerns, baseline surveys hadn’t been conducted across all sample states, and there was inadequate human resources or technical expertise to examine detailed project reports.

“Analysis of state and district KIIs (key informant interviews) also revealed inadequate hum­an resource as well as lack of capacity building trainings to state/district stakeholders,” the report highlighted.

In a reply in the Rajya Sabha last year, the Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had informed that state governments had released only half of the funds allocated under various empowerment schemes.

Expenditures under other schemes, such as grants-in-aid for the Maulana Azad Educational Foundation, have also been declining in the last few years.

A 2020 analysis by the government revealed that among the minority communities, Muslims had the highest percentage of beneficiaries with respect to their population, followed by Christians and Sikhs. Nearly 14 per cent of the total Muslim population had received a scholarship, whereas the ratio was 13 per cent for Christians and 12.2 per cent for Sikhs.

An earlier analysis by Busi­ness Standard had found that minorities had higher complet­ion rates of houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, but 15 of the 30 states had lower completion rates for minorities.