The Hindu : National : Big omission corrected in time

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Tuesday, Jul 07, 2009
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National

Big omission corrected in time

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: A 74 per cent increase in allocation, and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee forgot to flag it while delivering his budget speech in the Lok Sabha on Monday. But a timely reminder note saved the Minister from the instant criticism which would have been inevitable after he skipped the page on ‘welfare of minorities.’

Correcting the error, Mr. Mukherjee went on to announce that the plan outlay for the Minority Affairs Ministry was enhanced from Rs. 1000 crore in 2008-09 to Rs. 1,740 crore in 2009-10; registering a 74 per cent increase. This includes Rs. 990 crore for Multi-Sectoral Development Programme for Minorities in selected minority concentration districts.

Besides, the grants-in-aid to the Maulana Azad Education Foundation was almost doubled from Rs. 60 crore to Rs. 115 crore. The new scheme – National Fellowship for Students from the Minority Community – has been given Rs. 13.50 crore. And, the allocations for the pre-matric and post-matric scholarship schemes have gone up sizeably: From Rs. 70.72 crore to Rs. 176.99 crore in the case of the former and from Rs. 61.90 crore to Rs. 132.79 crore in the case of the latter.

Announcing an allocation of Rs. 25 crore each for the two campuses that Aligarh Muslim University plans to set up in Murshidabad in West Bengal and Malappuram in Kerala, the Minister highlighted this as a measure aimed at the welfare of minorities though the AMU comes under the Union Human Resource Development Ministry.

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