TRS Govt not spending budget on minorities' welfare: Congress

Hyderabad: Hyderabad City Congress Minorities Department Chairman Waliullah Sameer has strongly condemned the TRS Government for not implementing the promised 100% subsidy loan scheme for minorities.

"Finance Minister Etela Rajender, in his budget speech of 2018-19 delivered on March 15, 2018, had promised 100% subsidy loan scheme for minorities. However, no guidelines have been issued so far and therefore, not a single beneficiary has been given a single rupee loan under this scheme. Guidelines for T-Prime and T-SEZ are yet to be framed. Therefore, the allocated budget of Rs. 25 crore remained unutilised," Sameer said in a media statement on Saturday.

Sameer also pointed out that of Rs. 160 crore allocated under loan-cum-subsidy scheme, so far only Rs. 18.86 crore have been utilised. Alleging that the TRS Government was not serious in helping the unemployed youth belonging to minority community, he said that the share of Muslims in Driver Empower Programme has been too low. As per the information from Online Beneficiary Management and Monitoring System (OBMMS), under the Driver Empowerment Programme, Hyderabad got the least benefit with just 150 out of 7,343 four wheelers, 16 out of 948 two-wheelers and 39 out 1010 three-wheelers. Similarly, he said in 2016-17, under Driver Empowerment Programme Registration, the applications from Muslim Minorities were just 3,080 out of 21,910 from across the State. Of them, there were just 548 applications of Muslims and just 6 of Christians from Hyderabad.

The Congress leader said that about 1.54 lakh youth belonging to Minority communities had applied for subsidised bank loan schemes in 2015-16. Of them 8,400 were selected for receiving loans. But the banks did not come forward to provide the loan component. He said that the situation has been turning from bad to worse for minorities in Telangana, especially for those living in Hyderabad. He said neither the State Government nor banks were willing to help the unemployed youth of Muslim community which is clearly evident from the official figures.

Sameer said that the jobless minorities youth were even unable to apply for any scheme as the official website of Telangana State Minorities Finance Corporation http://tsmfc.telangana.gov.in/ is not functional. He said that there was a huge mismatch between the reality and the claims made by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao of him being a minority-friendly CM.

The Congress leader said not even 40% of Rs. 1,973 crore allocated for minorities' welfare in 2018-19 budget has been spent. Of Rs. 735 crore allocated for Telangana Minorities Residential Educational Institutions Society (TMREIS), only Rs. 170 crore has been spent. Similarly, as against the allocation of Rs. 30 crore for Pre-Matric Scholarship for minority students, only Rs. 2.37 crore were spent. Likewise, only Rs. 7 crore out of Rs. 40 crore allocated for Urdu Academy has been spent.

Sameer said instead of making hollow claims of being minority-friendly, TRS leaders should pressurise the Chief Minister, who holds the portfolio of minorities' welfare, to implement the schemes and release promised amounts on minorities' welfare.