Mamata meets minorities,with sops,thank you

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced a host of schemes and sops for minorities and also promised to table a revised draft Bill.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday announced a host of schemes and sops for minorities and also promised to table a revised draft Bill in the Assembly in the next three months for 10 per cent reservation for minorities in government jobs.

Addressing a huge gathering at an even organised by the West Bengal Minorities Development and Finance Corporation at the Netaji Indoor Stadium,Mamata thanked the minorities for voting her to power and promised to do the maximum for their overall social development. She slammed the previous Left Front government for failing to implement welfare schemes for minorites.

This was Mamatas first meet with minorities after assuming power.

The Left Front Government had come in for criticism in the Sachar Committee report for failing to uplift the socio-economic status of Muslims in the state. In February 2010,the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government implemented the Ranganath Mishra Commissions recommendations,introducing a 10 per cent reservation in government jobs for the 53 backward classes among Muslims.

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Mamata said the hurried and erroneous notification in this regard was a political move as the elections were nearing. As far as I know the Governor has not signed it and we would fix it soon for delivering the necessary benefits she added.

At the event,scholarships,stipends and loans worth Rs 21.37 crore were distributed for 54,166 persons while the Corporation also announced distribution of Rs 145 crore under Self Employment Schemes.

Mamata announced a special grant of Rs 122 crore for providing scholarships and stipends and Rs 82 crore as loans to meritorious minority students in the next one year. She also announced building of 37,300 houses under the Indira Awas Yojana for the minorities.

She also announced that the state government would set up an Expert Committee for Minorities,which will check the legal implications and issues related to minorities reservation in the state.

First published on: 31-07-2011 at 02:41:52 am