Meagre Minority Welfare Funds In Budget: Shabbir Ali

Congress leader and former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir today strongly condemned the BJP-led union government for reducing the funds allocated for minority welfare in the Union Budget for 2021-22.

Reacting to the budget, which was presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament today, he alleged that the funds allotted for minority affairs had been reduced from Rs 5,029 crore in the 2020-21 budget to Rs 4,810.77 crore in this year's budget.

Questioning the Centre's commitment to the minorities in the nation, Shabbir Ali also claimed that the funds issued in 2020-21 were later lowered to Rs 4,005 crore as well.

"The hollowness of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's slogan of 'Sabka saath, sabka vikas' has been exposed through the budget this year. It has ignored the cause of the welfare of the nation's minorities almost entirely. A mere Rs 4,810.77 crore has been allocated for the welfare of minorities from a budget of nearly Rs 34 lakh crore. This despite the fact that they constitute nearly 15% of the nation's population," he said.

"The Centre has been conspiring to deprive students belonging to minority communities of higher education, made obvious from the reduction in the number of education-related schemes included in the budget for the year. Spending on minority education has gone down. The funds set aside for the Post-Matric Scholarship for Minorities have been reduced from Rs 535 crore last year to just Rs 468 crore this year. Similarly, funds for the Merit-cum-Means Scholarship for professional and technical courses (undergraduate and post-graduate courses) have been reduced by Rs 75 crore, from Rs 400 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 325 crore in 2021-22. Even the Maulana Azad National Fellowship for Minority Students has been greatly reduced from Rs 175 crore to just Rs 99 crore. Likewise, the funds for schemes to support minority students who clear the preliminary examinations conducted by national bodies, including the UPSC, the SSC and the State Public Service Commissions, has been lowered from Rs 10 crore to Rs 8 crore," the Congress leader added.

Overall, Shabbir Ali said, the allocations for the schemes for the empowerment of minorities through education had been reduced from Rs 2,530 crore to Rs 2,381 crore.

The former minister also claimed that funding for skill development and livelihood support too had been reduced from Rs 602 crore to Rs 573 crore, this year.

"Funds for the Nai Manzil scheme have been axed greatly, from Rs 120 crore in 2020-21 to just Rs 87 crore in 2021-22. The money sanctioned for the USTTAD scheme has also been reduced from Rs 60 crore to Rs 47 crore. Spending on the Centre's own Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram has fallen to Rs 1,390 crore, compared to last year's Rs 1,600 crore. Overall, the allocations for the Central Sector Schemes/Projects have been lowered from Rs 3,210 crore to Rs 3,016 crore," he alleged.

Shabbir Ali also condemned the NDA government for "neglecting" Telangana in the Union Budget.

"Not a single one of Telangana's development projects found even a mention in the budget speech. The TRS government and the BJP MPs in the state have both failed to pressurise the Centre into extending funding for the development of Telangana. The Congress will soon expose the injustices being heaped upon Telangana by the Centre. The KCR government too is no better, having failed to get funds for even those projects that were approved by the previous Congress-led UPA government under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act," he said.

Many other Congress leaders, including N Uttam Kumar Reddy and Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, have also expressed their displeasure at the budget.