Lucknow, June 8: The Centre has advised all universities to increase the number of Muslim teachers in colleges located in areas with a high concentration of people from the community.

All universities have received a letter, dated May 6, from the University Grant Commission that passed on this instruction from the human resource development (HRD) ministry, a Benaras Hindu University (BHU) teacher said.

The ministry had written to the UGC on March 10 this year to “post Muslim teachers in educational institutions in areas of Muslim population”, based on the recommendations of the Sachar panel that looked into the social, economic and educational status of Indian Muslims. The Sachar report had been tabled in Parliament on November 30, 2006.

The committee had found that only one in 25 undergraduate students was a Muslim. The ratio fell to one in 50 at the postgraduate level.

The ministry apparently believes that appointing more Muslim teachers could encourage more students from the community to join higher education institutions in Muslim-dominated areas.

“I would request you to advise universities and colleges suitably so that the alarmingly low access of Muslim students to higher education could be improved with the positioning of teachers belonging to that community wherever feasible,” the HRD ministry letter said.

As a first step, BHU has asked affiliated colleges to transfer Muslim lecturers from colleges in mixed areas to towns where the population of students from the community is high.

In Uttar Pradesh, a high percentage of Muslim students comes from towns such as Azamgarh, Jaunpur and Lucknow in the east and central parts of the state. The western districts where their percentage is high includes towns like Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bagpat and Aligarh.

The letter has triggered howls of protest from the BJP, which termed it “politically motivated”.

Last year, the UPA government had worked out a 15-point action plan based on the Sachar recommendations. Instructions were issued to improve the representation of minorities in government, public sector enterprises and public sector banks.

The education ministry had announced a special drive, in districts with a substantial population of Muslims, to train primary, upper primary and secondary-level teachers.