New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has been working for the all-round development of the minorities without any appeasement, discrimination and political exploitation, Union Minorities Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. Dismissing suggestions that there have been less development initiatives for the minorities in the recent past, Naqvi said the allocation of funds in schemes like scholarships for minority students was more during the Modi government than the previous UPA regime.
We are empowering all poor, backwards and downtrodden people without any appeasement. We follow the mantra of development without discrimination and empowerment with dignity, he said during Question Hour. Giving data of a study on various welfare schemes of the Modi government, Naqvi said out of the 2.31 crore houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, 31 per cent were allocated in 25 minority-dominated areas, 33 per cent beneficiary of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi were minorities and out of the nine crore beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, 37 per cent were from the minority communities.
He also said 36 per cent beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana were from minority communities. We are working for the welfare of the minorities without any political exploitation and without beating the drums, he said. Naqvi said there has been no "communal engineering, only PWD (Poor, Women, Downtrodden) engineering.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the central government provides free houses for the poor. A total of Rs 6,000 is provided by the central government to all farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi as minimum income support. Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, free LPG gas connection is given to the women belonging to below poverty line and the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) is a scheme for providing loans up to 10 lakh to the non-corporate, non-farm small and micro enterprises.
Replying to a supplementary question on alleged reduced number of minorities among the successful UPSC candidates, Naqvi said it was not true that the number has gone down but increased only and the government has been providing free coaching to the deserving candidates. More minority students are getting into bureaucracy after their success in UPSC. But we are not doing any favour to them. They got there because of their merit and hard work, he said.
PTI
