New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has approved a slew of projects including new schools, enhancing educational infrastructure for girls and job-focussed skill training in its effort to reach out to minorities across the country. The government is also examining a proposal to set up six schools in Kerala's Wayanad, the parliamentary constituency of former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.

The government has cleared 12 projects in Uttar Pradesh, including a 100-bed girls hostel in Bhadohi, government girls ITI in Mau, Deoria and Sultanpur, two government girls inter-college in Sant Kabir Nagar, a degree college in Pratapgarh and a government Medical College for Unani Medical Science in Bareilly. All these institutions will be located in a minority concentration area. The government has also cleared five projects in minority concentrated areas of Kottayam, Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram.

These includes an agriculture 'Hunar Hub' and a multi-purpose 'Hunar Hub', a women skill development centre, a women empowerment and facilitation centre and infrastructure development project for spray painting and computer-based designing course in the government ITI centre Velland, a minority concentration area of Thiruvananthapuram.

According to documents reviewed by Firstpost, at least 80 percent of the resources in approved projects have been allocated for education, health and skill development.

Of these, 33 to 40 percent projects are women-centric. The projects spread across 26 states will be monitored through oversight committee in state and district-level and to ensure quality control, an expert team will carry out field visits, quality control tests of the construction work.

The ministry has also considered a proposal of Aligarh Muslim University for construction of two hostels each at Malappuram, Kerala and Murshidabad, West Bengal. The university's Malappuram centre established in 2010 started functioning from its main campus from 2013 with hostel facility for 120 boys and 80 girls in the semi-permanent structure. Both hostels are in a dilapidated state.

The annual enrollment at Malappuram is 520 students. Murshidabad's structure, which started functioning from 2012, has a hostel capacity for 250 boys and 100 girls. Around 21 projects have been approved in minority areas of Assam including 58 'Sadbhav Mandaps' in Barpeta, Bongaigoan, Chirang, Darrang, Dhubri, Diam Hasaao, Goalpara, Kamrup, Karbi Angling, Karimganj, Sonitpur and Udalgiri districts and these centres will be equipped with e-services. There will four training centres for women, a teacher training centre and a girls hostel in Barpeta for a junior girls college.

The government has also approved construction of 11 girls hostels attached to schools and madarasas in various districts of West Bengal, which be built as per the rules of Ministry of Human Resource Development and run by the state government. The state will also 213 health centres and sub-centres with sufficient number of medical and paramedical staff. The government has also cleared a proposal to construct 125 additional classrooms in the minority concentration area of Fatehabad district in Haryana, which is going to the polls next month.

The district will also have 16 anganwadi centres. Uttarakhand will have two inter college for minority areas of Dehradun and Haridwar districts with science labs and additional blocks in the schools in Kashipur, Jashpur and Sitarganj areas of Udham Singh Nagar district. Documents suggest that Common Service Centres in minority concentration areas have also been approved in Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Haryana, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.

In some states, projects cleared during the first term of the Modi government have been delayed. In Telangana, construction of hostels, residential schools in minority concentration areas have not been completed even after substantial time has passed. The state government has been told to complete the projects by the end of the financial year. A similar situation has been encountered in Bihar where projects cleared in 2015 and 2016 have not progressed. The state government has informed the Centre that it is working on 57 projects and few had to be dropped due to non-availability of suitable land. As far as scholarships for minority students is concerned, documents revealed several instances of fraud.

“There were attempts to subvert the system, especially at the verification state of the scholarship applications. When the applications were sent for re-verification, large number of applications were rejected,” documents stated. The government has also fixed stringent rules for implementation of these projects. State and district authorities have been made accountable for timely completion, elimination of duplication of work and funding.

“States should ensure that the proposals have the approval of the state level committee of prime minister's 15 point-programme and mission director of centrally sponsored schemes concerned in order to ensure that the proposals are as per the specifications set by line ministries concerned and that any duplication is ruled. Further, the states should also ensure that the assets proposed are located in the identified minority concentration areas,” documents further added.

Updated Date: September 24, 2019 20:53:41 IST

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