In poll season, the UPA’s move to introduce a minority quota in a crucial legislation like the Lok Pal is sure to reap rich dividends, UPA managers feel. Reservation for Muslims in the search committee and board of the Lok Pal, for instance, was envisaged by the government as a blow for the empowerment of Muslim minorities.
However, a glance at the government’s track record of minority welfare suggests it has been unable to do even what it had promised to do.
Minorities constitute 19% of the country’s population and the budgetary allocation for schemes meant for them is about 5% of the total plan allocation of 2010-11.
According to the Ministry of Minority Welfare itself, of the announced 17 minority welfare programmes till March 2011, only eight had taken off. Six programmes like the grant-in-aid to state Wakf Boards; and a scheme for leadership development of minority women, did not take off and there was zero expenditure on these schemes.
With only three months of the 11th plan remaining, out of a total allocation of Rs 7,000 crore to the Ministry of Minorities Affairs, only 57% had been utilised.
Around 5.2 million Muslim children benefited from the pre-matric scholarships in the 11th plan, however when compared to the enrolment figures, only one out of each 4.55 enrolled Muslim child in classes I-VII – and one out of every 7.7 Muslim child in the entire age group obtains a scholarship.
Another flagship programme for the minorities 15-Point Programme earmarks 15% of outlays and physical targets of select schemes for the minorities. The scheme again suffers from the blunt area development mandate. As activist Shabnam Hashmi of Anhad points out these programmes “need better monitoring.” Greater coordination between both the MSDP and the 15 point programme is also critical for better targeting of minorities, says Hashmi.
A member of the Sonia Gandhi led National Advisory Council NAC, Harsh Mander who has studied the government’s minority development programmes contradicts the government’s claims. Mander’s report which reviewed minority welfare schemes has critiqued the schemes for being too small in scale and not sufficiently targeted, for instance, at Muslims in particular to have an impact.
Mander’s report from Centre for Equity Studies first made public in August raised a storm and put the UPA government on the defensive. Mander since, has revised the report in November, responding to some of the objections raised by the government and has stuck to his stand.
What riled the Congress led UPA, which has always projected a minority friendly face is Mander’s forthright allegation that the Centre was reluctant to name “Muslims” as targets of programmes like the Multi-Sectoral Development Programme MSDP for fear of campaign by the opposition alleging that UPA was involved in “minority appeasement”.
| Minority welfare programmes of UPA |
| SCHEMES WHERE EXPENDITURE IS NIL (ZERO) UPTO MARCH 2011 |
| · Grant-in-aid to State Wakf Board |
| · Interest subsidy on Educational Loans for Overseas Studies |
| · Promotional Activities for Linguistic Minorities |
| · Scheme for Leadership Development of Minority Women |
| · Strengthening of the State Wakf Boards |
| · Scheme for containing Population decline |
| SCHEMES WHERE EXPENDITURE IS BETWEEN 25 TO 100% |
| · Coaching & Allied Scheme for Minorities |
| · GIA to Maulana Azad Edn Foundation |
| · Post- Matric Scholarship |
| · Pre-Matric Scholarship |
| · Secretariat-Social Services |
| · Merit cum Means Scholarship |
| · GIA to State channelising Agencies |
| · Research/Studies Monitoring & Evolution |
| · Multi Sectoral Dev Programme |
| · Computrisation of records of State Wakf Boards |
| · National Fellowship for students from the Minority communities |
| Source: Ministry of Minority Affairs |
Rebutting the argument proffered by officials that Muslims cannot be exclusively targeted, Mander in his revised report, cites several court rulings and the Sachar commission report which proved the social and economic backwardness of the Muslim community; thereby substantiating their requirement for Muslim focused welfare schemes.
Backed by the ground study of minority concentrated districts terms, Mander terms the “failure” as “not simply of budgets, programmes or personnel” but of “the political valour and vision.”
Hashmi views the UPA’s initiatives at minority welfare as “mixed performance.” “The schemes are well intentioned but there are loopholes galore- there is a cap on the pre-matric scholarships for every state then there are problems in the way the MSDP has been conceived.” Hashmi says at the level of planning and implementation, the deep seated prejudices against minorities are a major hindrance. “Mindsets need to change,” says Hashmi.
Another major lacunae in these minority welfare schemes is the failure to sufficiently identify and address its target groups.
Post the damning findings of the Sachar Commission report, the UPA government came up with ‘area-development’ mandate and programmes for Muslims. These, Mander states are “blunt” in their focus and are “of little help in lifting Muslims out of poverty and poor education”. Even when executed, the focus of most of these schemes is on infrastructural activities rather than on the more imperative aspects of creating livelihoods.
Analysing the Ministry of minority Affairs flagship programme Multi-sectoral Development Programme, which identifies 90 districts where minorities are 25% or more of the population, Mander found that in these districts, officials are required to prepare area development programmes, mostly for augmenting infrastructure.
“They are not required to - and are often actively discouraged from - actually targeting expenditure on minority ie. Muslim dominated villages”, states Mander.
| Expenditure of Minority welfare programmes of the Ministry of Minority Affairs | ||||
| Scheme | B.E. | R.E. | Expenditure | % of RE |
| Coaching & Allied Scheme for Minorities | 15.00 | 15.00 | 14.37 | 95.80 |
| GIA to Maulana Azad Edn Foundation | 125.00 | 125.00 | 125.00 | 100.00 |
| Post- Matric Scholarship | 265.00 | 265.00 | 228.85 | 86.36 |
| Pre-Matric Scholarship | 450.00 | 450.00 | 446.18 | 99.15 |
| Secretariat-Social Services | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.44 | 88.00 |
| Merit cum Means Scholarship | 135.00 | 135.00 | 108.65 | 80.48 |
| GIA to State channelizing Agencies | 119.00 | 119.00 | 118.83 | 99.86 |
| Research/Studies Monitoring & Evolution | 22.00 | 22.00 | 12.72 | 57.82 |
| Multi Sectoral Dev Programme | 1399.50 | 1327.30 | 913.03 | 68.79 |
| Computrisation of records of State Wakf Boards | 13.00 | 6.00 | 3.56 | 59.33 |
| National Fellowship for students from the Minority communities | 30.00 | 30.00 | 29.98 | 99.93 |
The result being that although funds under the MSDP is seen to be utilised, in districts with higher proportions of minorities and Muslims, in reality the programmes are neither located in nor benefit the minority and Muslim populations.
Its not to say that the UPA has not given a financial fillip to crucial schemes. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in this year’s budget almost doubled the allocations for for the pre-matric and post matric scholarship scheme for minorities.
But the allocation is insignificant in context of the large numbers of beneficiaries.
