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Minority Ministry has not utilised big chunk of welfare fund: Parliamentary Panel

Low utilisation of fund, allocation reduced by more than Rs 1,000 Crore, panel tells government to plug loopholes in scholarship schemes for minorities

Low utilisation of fund, allocation reduced by more than Rs 1,000 Crore, panel tells government to plug loopholes in scholarship schemes for minorities

The Parliament Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment’s report, assessing the demands for grants for 2021-22 pertaining to the Ministry of Minority Affairs led by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, has revealed that the ministry has not spent its budgetary allocation fully. The pace of expenditure in the scholarship component of the fund has been “slow” and the panel has said it is “surprised” to note that.

This non-utilisation of funds for minority scholarship is an indictment of sorts of the Ministry of Minority Affairs reported India Tomorrow. The poor implementation of minority welfare schemes, has been officially called out now by the Parliament Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment. The eighth report of the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment on ‘Demands for Grants for the Year 2020-21’, made some important observations and recommendations on the functioning of the minority ministry. The report was presented by the Committee Chairperson Rama Devi, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament elected from Bihar.

According to the report, “Large chunk of funds meant for minority welfare remained unutilised till the fag end of this Financial Year (2020-21).” Now the panel has asked the Minority Affairs ministry to set up Parliamentary Constituency Level Committees for monitoring various welfare schemes for minorities. The Standing Committee has stated that it was “surprised” to note that the ministry was not able to spend its budgetary allocation fully, and that this underutilisation occurred despite the allocation being reduced by more than Rs 1,000 crore at the revised estimate stage from Rs 5,029 crore to Rs 4,005 crore. The Minority Ministry has been asked to plug loopholes and work with states towards preventing alleged misappropriation of funds under scholarship schemes for minority students. The scholarship scheme is deemed as the flagship scheme along with Multi-sectoral Development Programme (MsDP).

The Standing committee observed in its report, “The Committee, although, was informed that the said reduction was not for the Scholarship Schemes but for other Schemes of the Ministry, nonetheless feel that as compared to other Ministries implementing similar Scholarship Schemes, the Ministry of Minority Affairs has stood way behind in utilising the allotted funds”. According to news reports, the committee also observed that it was unable to comprehend as to how the ministry would accomplish objectives of these schemes unless all states and union territories complete their processes of re-verification in a short time. It recommended that the Ministry “review the status of fund utilisation by States at regular intervals and vigorously pursue the slow performing states to utilize the funds.” Adding that the officials focus on the implementation of schemes, it said, “Select team of officers of the Ministry should visit the most challenging areas for physical monitoring of various welfare schemes being implemented for minorities”.

In a strong observation, the parliamentary panel noted that it was “quite disturbed” by cases reported about the alleged misappropriation of funds. Allegations that money was “going to fake students under these scholarship schemes for children belonging to underprivileged minorities in six states”, are under investigation. The report stated, “In one State, after enquiry, the fraud is stated to have happened due to passwords leaked by certain vested interests as well as other loopholes.”

According to the news report, the panel “pointed out that the minority ministry officials have always been claiming that the system is fail-safe due to all transactions/ verifications done online, a dedicated portal, cash transfer through direct benefit transfer (DBT) and similar measures, which are definitely the need of the hour, it is disconcerting for it to observe that such instances of corruption happened.” The panel recommended that the ministry should remove all identified loopholes in the system, strengthen privacy of data and passwords and reduce all manual interventions, be it school personnel, banking intermediaries, NGOs or unauthorised persons. It added that “banks should ensure that the accounts of students do not get closed due to non-activity since minority children cannot do regular transactions, because some evaluation studies have shown that the scholarship money gets reverted also due to accounts being inactive/closed.”

It also made other strong observations such as, “The Committee cannot but conclude that the Ministry has not been able to shoulder the huge responsibility of this ambitious Scheme. While the Ministry would be requesting for more funds at RE stage to be released to fill the gap in the next Financial Year that is 2021-22, they are also stately seeking an outlay of Rs 2,185 crore for the year 2021-22.”

According to the news report, it was also found that the ministry’s Nai Manzil Scheme was lagging. “Tthe Committee is disappointed to note that despite aid from the World Bank, the Scheme has been lagging mainly due to non-availability of job opportunities in the vicinity of the beneficiaries particularly for girls who are not willing to take up jobs outside,” said the report.

It is “disappointing” that out of 98,311 persons enrolled, only 26,312 have got job placements. The report also recommended that the state Waqf Boards go for registration of not only registered properties but also unregistered properties and their subsequent digitisation under WAMSI, to prevent encroachment.
 

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