Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has reassured the Muslim minority his government will not spare any efforts to uplift the community economically, telling officials to initiate steps to help the minority youth to access better jobs and opportunities.
He also asked officials to make necessary arrangements to allow minority students to write competitive examinations in their mother tongue, Urdu.
The state government also declared its commitment to the reservation for the minority community.
The assurances came at a meeting with MIM President and MP Asaduddin Owaisi and MIM floor leader in the assembly Akbaruddin Owaisi.
Several issues relating to the Muslim community came up for the discussions and review at the meeting, where senior government officials of various departments including the minority welfare were present.
Owaisi urged the chief minister to enhance the allocation for the minority welfare in the coming budget to Rs20 billion (Dh1 billion).
He also wanted proportional share for Muslims in government’s double bedroom housing scheme.
Saying 97,000 applications were submitted by Muslims for financial assistance, Owaisi demanded that the government should release Rs5 billion under the current year’s budget towards the loans. He said that of the allocated Rs11 billion budget for this year, not even half was used.
The state government had also not released Rs830 million allocated for the reimbursement of fee of students during the current years. Despite passing, the students were not given their certificates due to non-payment of fees, he said.
The meeting also decided to allocate 26 hectares land at Karmanghat area for a Muslim graveyard.
The government also agreed to hand over the lands under Hussain Shah Wali Dargah and Fakir Mullah Dargah to the state Waqf Board.
The chief minister directed the state minorities financial corporation to provide more finance to Muslims and encourage Muslim entrepreneurs under the TSiPass by setting up IT Parks.
“Muslim youth should not be confined to becoming electricians, technicians, mechanics or plumbers. They should become big contractors”, the chief minister told the officials.
Other major demands of the MIM include upgrading three junior colleges in the old city to the level of degree colleges and payment of Rs4.70 billion for the waqf properties acquired for the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project.
The Chief Minister expressed satisfaction over the implementation of Shadi Mubarak scheme under which 26,635 beneficiaries were paid Rs51,000 each. The payments were made directly in to their bank accounts.
