Minorities and Government schemes in India

The benefits of all the social schemes have not been able to reach the real beneficiaries.

• It is primarily because of the lack of education and skills to find way through the bureaucratic hurdles. Also, many of these schemes are launched without conducting any on-ground surveys to check the reality. The government thus has been always blamed for taking an anti-minority stance. An example of the same was that many welfare schemes were launched for Muslim weaver community in Andhra Pradesh by the PM to improve their economic condition. However, none could draw benefits from the same as there is a widespread occurrence of TB. The people thus needed more medical help than improvement of weaving techniques and marketing.
• Likewise, in case of Muslim youth dropping out of school, the government should not merely provide funding but dig into reasons why Muslim children have stayed away from education. Muslims above the age of 17, the percentage of children studying till matriculation is 17 percent as against national average of 26 percent. This worrying rise of illiteracy among Muslims needs a fresh look at the minority educational institutions and look for ways to integrate them with mainstream education.

Thus, government needs to check for real-life gaps by conducting elaborate surveys for the minorities before framing any policies.