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

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

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