Minorities’ scheme not monitored

DNA; Manoj R Nair; Monday, February 21, 2011,

A Right to Information (RTI) application has revealed that no state government agency is monitoring the implementation of the 15-point programme for the welfare of religious minorities. Even the state’s minorities’ affairs ministry is unaware of the status of the scheme.

“How is it possible to implement the 15-point programme without data on what the various departments are doing to help minority groups?” asked MA Khalid of Dongri’s Ekta Welfare Association. He had filed an RTI application in January with the state’s minorities’ affairs ministry asking for implementation details.

Khalid had asked for district-wise details of the implementation, allocation of funds annually to the scheme and whether the minority groups had benefited from the scheme.

He was told that the minorities’ affairs department had no information on the scheme’s implementation in the state. This is despite scheme guidelines specifying that a report on the implementation of the scheme has to be sent to the minorities’ affairs ministry, every quarter.

In response, state minority affairs minister Arif Naseem Khan said, “The reports [on the implementation] do not come to us. We had a recent meeting with the chief minister to review the 15-point programme and we have now decided that all departments and ministries should send regular reports (on the programme’s implementation) to the minorities’ affairs ministry.”