Former Minister and Mohammed Ali Shabbir has strongly condemned the BJP government at the Centre for slashing the funds for the welfare of minorities by over 38 per cent in the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Reacting to the budget speech, Mr. Shabbir Ali said that the Union government has reduced the allocation for minorities’ welfare from ₹ 5,020.50 crore in 2022-23 to ₹ 3,097.60 crore in 2023-24, a cut of ₹ 1,922.90 crore or nearly 38%. “Is this the reflection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’?” he asked while accusing the BJP at the Centre of crushing the minorities socially, educationally and economically by cutting funds for their welfare.
“Modi’s government has been systematically targeting the schemes meant for the economic and educational empowerment of poor minorities. It has scrapped pre-matric scholarship for minorities students of classes 1 to 8, hitting lakhs of poor students. Similarly, the Nai Udaan Scheme, meant to help minority candidates prepare for the preliminary examinations conducted by the Union and State Public Services Commissions, was also scrapped. The Maulana Azad National Fellowship for higher education too was scrapped in December last year. In the budget for 2023-24, the Modi government has reduced the budget for schemes under Skill Development and Livelihoods from ₹ 491.91 crore in 2022-23 to just ₹ 64.40 crore in 2023-24,” he said.
