In current poll season, the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) 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 per cent of the country’s population and the budgetary allocation for schemes meant for them is about 5 per cent of the total plan allocation of 2010-11.
According to the Ministry of Minority Welfare, of the announced 17 minority welfare programmes till March 2011, only eight had taken off. Six programmes, including 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.
| MINORITY WELFARE PROGRAMMES OF UPA |
| Schemes where expenditure is nil up to 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 & 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 |
| * Computerisation of Records of State Wakf Boards |
| *National Fellowship for Students from the Minority Communities |
With only three months left for the 11th Plan period to end, out of a total allocation of Rs 7,000 crore to the Ministry of Minorities Affairs, only 57 per cent had been utilised.
About 52 lakh Muslim children benefited from the pre-matric scholarships in the 11th plan. However, when compared to the enrollment 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 per cent of outlays and physical targets of select schemes for the group. 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 Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MSDP) and the 15 point programme is also critical for better targeting of minorities, says Hashmi.
| Expenditure of minority welfare programmes of the Ministry of Minority Affairs | ||||
| Scheme | Budget Estimate | Revised Estimate | Expen- diture | % 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 Channelising 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 |
| Computerisation 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 |
| Figures in Rs crore Source: Ministry of Minority Affairs | ||||
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 criticised the schemes for being too small in scale and not sufficiently targeted, for instance, at Muslims in particular, to have an impact.
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Mander’s report from the Centre for Equity Studies, first made public in August, raised a storm and put the UPA government on the defensive. Mander revised the report in November, responding to some of the objections raised by the government, and stuck to his stand.
What has riled the UPA, which has always projected a minority-friendly face, is the fact that Mander alleged that the Centre was reluctant to name “Muslims” as targets of programmes, like the MSDP, for fear of campaign by the opposition alleging that UPA was involved in “minority appeasement”.
Rebutting the argument proffered by officials that Muslims cannot be exclusively targeted, Mander in his revised report, cited 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, 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 for minority welfare as “mixed performance”. “The schemes are well-intentioned but 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 that 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.
After 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 MSDP, which identifies 90 districts where minorities are 25 per cent 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, i.e., Muslim dominated villages,” states Mander.
The result being that although funds under MSDP is seen to be utilised in districts with higher proportion of minorities and Muslims, in reality the programmes are neither located in areas of minority and Muslim populations nor benefit them.
It is 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 the pre-matric and post-matric scholarship scheme for minorities.
But the allocation is insignificant in context of the large numbers of beneficiaries.