A Parliamentary Panel has asked the Ministry of Minority Affairs to immediately initiate a process to collect data on people of minority communities living below the poverty line.
In its tenth report on action taken by the ministry on the 46th report of the panel, the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment has also asked the Minority Affairs ministry to devise a special scheme to make classrooms and school environment conducive and student-friendly for creating enthusiasm among students.
In the report tabled in Parliament today, the panel reiterated an earlier recommendation asking the ministry that "as regards having a list of BPL persons or families belonging to Minority community" the process of collecting above data be initiated immediately.
Earlier, the ministry had apprised the panel that Planning Commission has informed that 'Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), 2011' is still underway.
"The last BPL census was conducted in 2002. The religion-wise data was not collected in the census. Hence, information on BPL persons/families belonging to minority community is not available at present," the ministry had said in its reply.
In its earlier recommendations, the panel had suggested that the List of BPL persons or family belonging to minorities communities should be prepared and displayed in the website within one year.
The panel also asked Ministry of Minority Affairs that a special scheme be devised to make classrooms and school environment conducive and student friendly for creating an urge and enthusiasm among the children to come to the schools and to attend the classes, take part in extracurricular activities like sports, debate, quiz and community service, etc.
