NEW DELHI, Sept 17:
Minority Affairs Ministry will provide Rs 120 crore for relief and rehabilitation of flood-hit people of Jammu and Kashmir and all officers and staff including the minister will donate a day’s salary for the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
Making this announcement at a press conference here today, Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla said the special package will be utilised under various schemes and programmes being executed by the ministry.
Out of the Rs 120 crore package, Rs 50 crore will be extended as concessional finance for setting up of micro enterprises and Rs five crore will be spent under the ‘seekho aur kamao’ programme to provide training to 2,000 youths.
The Minister said Rs 30 crore will be provided as pre-matric and post-matric scholarships. Besides, Rs 1.30 crore worth scholarship amount will be given to 2,000 girls under the Maulana Azad Education Foundation.
The Ministry will spent Rs 25 crore for construction of health centres, Government schools and madrasas, ITIs and colleges under the ‘jan vikas yojna’.
Heptulla said Rs four crore will be utilised for upgradation of skills and training of 1000 people in traditional arts and crafts and providing bridge courses for madrasa students under the ‘nai manzil’ initiative.
“It has also been decided that my ministry, including myself, and all other officers and staff will contribute one-day salary for the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund,” she said.
Against the backdrop of the NDA Government announcing a Rs 500 crore package for the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits, Heptulla said that the decision on including them in the minority list rests with the Government.
“I have sympathies with them. This decision rests with the Government. If they agree to include them in the minority list, we will be seven then,” Heptulla replied to a query on the long pending demand of the Kashmiri Pandits.
She added that the Kashmiri Pandits have recently met her with their demand for minority status and she was “sympathetic” with their cause.
Kashmiri Pandits for a long time have been demanding that they be conferred with minority status, which has been so far given to Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis.
The Government had announced a Rs 500 crore package for rebuilding lives of Kashmiri Pandits in this year’s Union Budget. The fund will be earmarked for providing support to Kashmiri Pandits for “rebuilding their lives”.
The Narendra Modi Government had flagged rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants, who left the Valley after the onset of militancy in 1990, as its priority and, ahead of the budget, a series of meetings was held between officials of the State and the Centre.
At present, 60,452 families of Kashmiri migrants are registered in the country, of which 38,119 are in Jammu, 19,338 in Delhi and 1,995 in other States. (PTI)
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