NEW DELHI: Over the last four years the ministry of minority affairs (MoMA) has reached out to the minority community students in Ladakh with about 8.52 lakh scholarships. Now that the special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 has been abrogated and Ladakh has been carved out as a separate Union Territory, the MoMA is planning to step-up its outreach in the region starting with Leh and Kargil .

In a bid to work out a plan for the ground work for development, minister of minority affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi met the BJP MP from Ladakh, Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, on Friday to discuss how MoMA could strengthen the outreach. “We plan to step-up development work under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram (PMJVK) and our other schemes in both J&K and Ladakh. For instance, Ladakh still does not have the Common Service Centre facility for the common citizen. The ministry in coordination with other line ministries will take such facilities to both Ladakh and J&K,” Naqvi said.

Naqvi said that the ministry in coordination with the other line ministries will plan camps for schemes in Leh and Kargil areas at the outset. “Education infrastructure for school and higher education will be a primary focus of the ministry. To highlight the skills and traditions of the region we are exploring the possibility of creating a ‘hunar’ hub in Ladakh to give the craftspersons of the region their due space,” Naqvi added.

In Ladakh, among minority communities besides Muslims, there are Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains. Hence, Naqvi shared the ministry has an important role to ensure that schemes meant for the minority communities reach them. “Between 2015 to 2018-19 the ministry sanctioned scholarship for education to 8.52 lakh students in Ladakh,” the minister shared.

He pointed out that when Multi-Sectoral Development Programme was revamped as PMJVK in 2018 the list of Minority Concentration Areas (MCA) included four districts from J&K for interventions under the programme. They include Leh, Kargil and Kulgam and Jammu. Now work in the identified blocks of these districts will be fast tracked,” Naqvi added. In Kargil four blocks were identified under PMJVK include Shakar Chiktan, Zanskar, Shargole and Lungnak. Durbok, Nyoma and Panamic are the three blocks identified in Leh district of Ladakh. In Kulgam district, Qazigund block has been identified and Satwari block in Jammu district.

The areas for implementation of PMJVK were identified where there was a minimum of 25% minority population and the backwardness parameters were found to be below the national average. The MCAs are based on the census 2011 data and the backwardness parameters include religion specific socio-economic indicators at the district, block and town level which includes the rate of literacy and work participation and rate of female literacy and work participation. The backwardness parameters are also judged based on basic amenities like percentage of houses with safe drinking water, pucca walls, electricity and toilets.

