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Sheila distributes loans to minority community

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI JAN. 17. The Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, today distributed loans totalling Rs 21 lakhs to 46 persons belonging to various minority communities at a function organised by the Delhi SC/ST/OBC/Handicapped/Minority Finance and Development Corporation at Anglo Arabic School in Old Zakir Husain College at Ajmeri Gate here.

Addressing the gathering, Ms Dikshit declared that within a week, an additional sum of Rs 1.30 crores would be disbursed to 400 beneficiaries of the minority community under various loan schemes of the Corporation.

Issuing instructions for prompt disbursal through a special window for clearance, Ms Dikshit also called upon women of the minority communities to come forward and avail of the loans for self-reliance. She also announced introduction of entrepreneurship courses in Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University from the next academic session for enabling people to avail of job-oriented programmes.

The Delhi Social Welfare Minister, Raj Kumar Chauhan, said the Corporation would henceforth fund various vocational training courses and programmes for needy people of the minority communities, as it does for the SC and ST beneficiaries. Mr Chauhan said the existing provision of getting the loan application of minorities guarantees by a Government official will be soon done away with and the minorities will not have to fulfil a guarantee criteria similar to that followed by SCs and STs.

The Delhi Development Minister, Haroon Yusuf, who had also accompanied Ms Dikshit, said the Government was committed to the cause of minorities and this was the first time it was giving financial assistance to them. Stressing the need for proper utilisation of the loan and availing of the various schemes being offered by the Delhi Government, he appealed to the Muslim youth to "uphold the ethos of Ganga-Yamuna culture and contribute in nation building by remaining in the national mainstream''.

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