PNS|Hyderabad
TPCC Political Affairs Committee (PAC) Convener Mohammed Ali Shabbir criticised the BRS Government’s ‘Minorities Bandhu’ scheme, calling it a “farce” and an attempt to deceive poor jobless youth belonging to minorities.
In a media statement on Monday, Shabbir Ali said that the BRS government headed by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has done nothing for the jobless youth of minority communities in Telangana.
He pointed out that in 2015-16, around 1.53 lakh jobless youth applied for loans when the Telangana State Minorities Finance Corporation invited applications. However, their applications were rejected and no applications were invited for the next seven years.
Recently, when the TSMFC invited fresh applications, again around 2.20 lakh jobless youth applied for it. However, these applications too remained unprocessed.
Shabbir said that KCR deceived minorities using delaying tactics. First, a meagre amount of Rs 50 crore was allocated and when the Congress protested another Rs 70 crore was added. But this amount was not enough to help all jobless youth who have applied for loans.
KCR came up with the fresh idea of ‘Minority Bandhu’ to provide Rs 1 lakh as financial assistance to minority communities with a 100 per cent subsidy, he said.
He pointed out that the announcement was made with no clarity on the total amount to be disbursed and the deadline to complete the process.
He said that KCR is an expert in delaying tactics and there are strong possibilities that the approval process would be dragged on till the release of the election notification and minorities would not get the loans on the pretext of the Model Code of Conduct coming into force.
They will be asked to vote for the BRS and AIMIM if they want their applications approved, he said.
The Congress leader also countered KCR’s claims of spending for of minorities. He said that spending on welfare is not calculated by figures alone, but also on the percentage of the total budget allocated to it and the year-on-year increase made in the budget.
“Examining the decade from 2004 to 2014 under the Congress government, we can see impressive growth in the allocation for minority welfare. The total budget grew approximately 3.15 times during this period, from Rs 51,142 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 1,61,348 crore in 2013-14. But the allocation for minorities’ welfare saw an even more significant surge increasing by 26.33 times from Rs 39.03 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 1,027 crore in 2013-14. There was also a noticeable year-on-year increase in the budgetary allocation, which peaked at a substantial 110.02% growth in 2013-14,” the former minister said.
