NEW DELHI: Four madrasas across Bihar and Maharashtra have volunteered to impart skill development training to 1,200 Muslim youth each by integrating with the government-run Maulana Azad National Academy for Skills (MANAS). Skill training projects have already started at three madrasas in Bihar and a Mumbai-based madrasa under MANAS, a special purpose vehicle established in November 2014 to address skill development needs of minorities and ensure their sustainable livelihood, with emphasis on self-employment.

The four madrasas that have started the skill training projects are Hussaini Masjid Darul madrasa, Bhandup, Mumbai; Idara-e-Sharia Khajur Banna, Patna; Anjuman Islamia madrasa, Motihari, Bihar; and Islamia Anjuman Rafagul Muslamin, East Champaran.

MANAS aims to integrate madrasas with skill development on a voluntary basis. Home ministry officials say the training of youth in madrasas through clerics will help the government reach out to minority youth and deter them from being influenced by extremist, radical ideology of groups such as Islamic State. Incidentally, the government’s counter-radicalisation strategy is aimed at engaging impressionable Muslim youth through community elders and religious heads, apart from ensuring their employability through skill development.

Incidentally, minority youth are also being provided placement-linked skill development under the minority affairs ministry’s “Seekho aur Kamao” initiative. As many as 20,980 trainees were sanctioned for training under the scheme in the first seven months of 2015-16, surpassing the figure of 19,169 youth trained in entire 2014-15. In 2013-14, when the UPA was in power, 19,516 minority youth were trained under this programme.

Similarly, loans given at concessional rates to minorities by the National Minorities Development & Finance Corporation (NMDFC) in 2015-16 until October 2015 totaled Rs 221.44 crore, as compared to Rs 431.20 crore through 2014-15 and Rs 325 crore in 2013-14. However, number of beneficiaries are fewer at 35,429 in the current financial year (until October) as compared to 1,08,752 in 2014-15.

Meanwhile, the amount of scholarships offered to minority students too has registered a 16% increase in 2014-15, with total disbursements at Rs 2,066.33 as compared to Rs 1,781.74 crore in 2013,14. While pre-matric scholarships rose 17% to Rs 1,129.27 crore over this period, post-matric scholarships were down 2.8% to Rs 501.28 crore, merit-cum-means based scholarships up 46.6% to Rs 381.37 crore and Maulana Azad National scholarship for meritorious girl students up by 29.2% to Rs 54.51 crore in 2014-15.

