|
New Delhi: The Minority Affairs Ministry
led by Salman Khurshid has been pulled up by a
Parliamentary Standing Committee for returning unutilised funds,
worth over Rs 587 crore, to the Centre in 2010-11.
The Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment in its
Twentieth report on the Minority Affairs Ministry noted that the
quantum of surrendered funds was much lesser in previous years.
The Ministry had earlier returned much lesser funds to the Centre,
Rs 33.63 crore and Rs 31.50 crore in 2008-09 and 2009-10,
respectively. However, questions are always raised over the
efficiency of the ministry. Besides, lack of sincerity on the part
of the ministry to implement the schemes meant for the minorities,
the way pre-metric and post-metric scholarships are being handled
has put a big question mark on its usefulness.
Against this backdrop, the findings
of the report that in addition to over Rs 24 crore in post matric scholarship scheme
and Rs 9.3 crore meant for computerisation of Wakf Boards, funds
amounting to over Rs 33 crore in pre matric scholarship scheme and
over Rs 26 crore in merit-cum-means scholarship scheme remained
unutilised, is nothing but ironic.
Moreover, the report notes, funds for several ongoing schemes such as Multi-sectoral
Development Programme for minority concentration districts under
which Rs 462.26 crore was alloted, had been surrendered.
The Standing Committee in its report also conceded that the Ministry could not utilise
funds meant for four new schemes which could not be launched but it
questioned why money was not utilised in the ongoing schemes.
Meanwhile, the Ministry tried to explain by stating that in some of these
schemes there had been a lack of adequate proposals from states
and Union Territories including the North East region.
The Committee, however, was not satisfied by the reply and
emphasised on better coordination with the states.
The Committee in its report recommended that the Ministry "take
effective steps to sensitise the states about the importance of
these schemes so as to achieve 100 per cent utilisation."
Established by the UPA Government in
its first term in the wake of the findings of the Sachar Committee
Report, the Ministry of Minority Affairs is the first in its kind
dedicated to the empowerment of the minorities.
|
Comments
|
Quick links