Manmohan Singh

New Delhi, Dec. 12: Muslim MPs from all parties have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to adopt the National Advisory Council’s recommendations by reworking the methodology to ensure that the Centre’s schemes for minorities reached the intended targets.

The Sonia Gandhi-headed NAC had proposed that if the fruits of central social schemes were to reach the minorities, hamlets and wards of minority-dominated localities needed to be made the primary unit of target rather than villages, towns and cities.

A letter signed by MPs such as Tariq Anwar (NCP), Hussain Dalwai, Mausam Noor and K. Rahman Khan (Congress), Moinul Hassan (CPM) and Badruddin Ajmal (AIUDF) pointed out that while the 12th Five Year Plan Approach Paper envisaged “more inclusive” planning, there had been no specific discernible intervention to address “Muslim issues”.

The lawmakers claimed that the Planning Commission’s BPL methodology had excluded Muslims from this category although their socio-economic conditions were “almost on a par” with that of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

“Muslims being part of the larger society, their backwardness can only be addressed with inclusive planning approach from all the departments rather than one ministry,” the letter said.

“Certain plan components from every ministry should be earmarked and focusedly spent to address development gaps. Programmes, schemes and policies designed for the overall growth of every ministry need to fix a certain share of their finances and target Muslims in proportion to their population,” the letter added.