The minority communities of Assam are up in arms against “whimsical and faulty” implementation of Prime Minister’s 15-Point Programme worth Rs. 703 crore for the welfare of minorities in 13 districts.
Char Chapori Sahitya Parishad, a literary organisation representing the minorities, found fault with the implementation of various multi-sect district development plans meant for the minority concentrated districts in the state. The President of the Parishad, Hafiz Ahmed, and Secretary Anowar Hussain said, “The multi-sect plans chalked out at the district level are faulty and whimsical and prepared in violation of the guidelines that stipulate that the schemes should cover areas with 25 per cent minority population.”
The Parishad claimed that many of the schemes started in areas where there is no sizable minority population. Citing one such case, the Parishad alleged that a 100-bed hospital was being set up at Samaguri in Nagaon, which has virtually no minority population, while the minority-dominated Mandia block in Barpeta had only one primary health centre.
The Parishad decided to petition PM Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the National Minorities Commission, and Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, seeking an immediate review of the welfare schemes at a meeting convened on June 20. The meeting also decided to constitute a 21-member pressure group.
The Parishad wants the programmes to focus mainly on improving education and health-care, rehabilitating riot victims, checking erosion, and equitable distribution of funds in urban and rural areas.
The Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) also lends support to the claim of the Parishad and accused the state government of diverting funds earmarked for the minorities as part of various multi-sect district development plans under the Union Minority Affairs Ministry. AUDF President and the newly elected MP of Dhubri parliamentary constituency, Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, said that the guidelines for the preparation of the district development plans under the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs state that priority should be given to villages / blocks / localities having a substantial population of minority communities. However, the Tarun Gogoi government was violating these guidelines, he alleged.
Ajmal said, “The state government is proposing to allocate funds in some areas with less than one per cent minority population. There are special guidelines for the preparation of the multi-sect district development plans for the minority-dominated districts. Priority for location of social and economic infrastructure should be given to villages, blocks or localities with a substantial population of minorities.”
He added, “However, we have seen the government propose funds for some areas with less than one person minority population. Rs 6.5 crore is being proposed to allocate in the Samaguri Goan Panchayat of Nagaon district where the percentage of minority population is less than 5. Similarly, Rs 5.32 lakh is being proposed to allocate in Shankardev Nagar with less than one per cent minority population.
“Likewise, Rs 50 lakh has been proposed for Kaliabor College. But concentration of minority population is less than 18% in the area,” Ajmal said. “There is no reason in allocating more than Rs 4 crore in the Nagaon Polytechnic as the institute is already under a scheme of the World Bank. Besides, the concentration of minority population is less than 10% in the area,” he added.
Ajmal and other leaders of AUDF charged the Congress government with neglecting the minorities in the state and threatened to make public the “fund diversion” cases. Ajmal also stated that the Prime Minister’s 15-Point Programme is aimed at enhancing the educational standard, providing an equitable share in economic opportunities and employment, improving the standard of living of the minorities, and taking up steps to control and prevent communal riots, but this was hardly the case in Assam.