TRS not extending loans to jobless minorities: Congress

Hyderabad: Hyderabad City Congress (HCC) Minorities Department has strongly condemned the TRS Government for not releasing any funds to provide loans to jobless youth of minority communities in Telangana State.

The department said that out of Rs 573.1 crore released for the first quarter of financial year 2019-20, only Rs. 24.41 crore has been earmarked for bank-linked-subsidy scheme. The Congress party will be launching a massive agitation if the TRS Government continues to deprive jobless minority youth of loans and other promised facilities.

HCC Chairman Sameer Waliullah, in a media statement on Thursday, alleged that the TRS Government was deliberately delaying the implementation of schemes meant for the eradication of unemployment among minority youth. He said the TRS Government has not spent a single rupee under any scheme since 2014 to give loans to jobless youth. If each youth is provided a loan of Rs. 1 lakh, then only 2,441 youth would benefit from it.

"Over 1.53 lakh jobless youth of minority communities had applied for loan-cum-subsidy scheme in 2015-16. Nearly 8,000 applications were reportedly approved, but no one was given a loan. The TRS Government has stopped receiving any loan applications since then, and no funds were released under this head despite allocations in annual budgets for the last five years," he said.

The Congress leader also ridiculed the contention of Director of Minorities Welfare Department Shahnawaz Qasim that loans could not be disbursed under bank-linked schemes of the Minorities Finance Corporation due to election code of conduct.

"This statement is completely misleading. TRS Government has not cleared the applications it got in 2015-16 and has stopped receiving fresh applications since then.

Therefore, how could the state government blame the Model Code of Conduct for non-implementation of an old scheme? When cheques could be distributed among farmers under Rythu Bandhu during elections, then why minority community youth were being shown the Model Code of Conduct, which is under implementation only since March 2019?" he asked.

Sameer also pointed out that the official website of Telangana State Minorities Finance Corporation was dysfunctional. He said the official website has been under "maintenance mode" since several months. Therefore, the jobless minority youth are even unable to even apply for the loan under any scheme.

"In previous term (2014-2018), the portfolio of Minorities' Welfare was held by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Therefore, it is the Chief Minister who should be directly blamed for not releasing a single rupee loan to jobless minority youth. This time, Welfare Minister Koppula Eshwar is handling the task. He is emulating KCR in cheating the minorities with false statements through the Minorities Welfare Department," he said.

Sameer reminded that the Chief Minister that while initiating a debate on minorities' welfare in the State Legislative Assembly on January 19, 2017, announced setting up of an exclusive IT SEZ for the minority industrialists in Hyderabad. Even after two years, he said that the announcement remained on paper and no steps have been taken to fulfill the promise.