Pics: Jeevan D'Costa

Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi I (JD)

Udupi, Nov 28: Abdul Azeem, president of Karnataka State Minority Commission held a grievance meeting with the heads and representatives of various minority institutions of Udupi district on November 29 at the Udupi district commissioner's office.

Leaders of Muslim, Christian and other minority communities participated in the meeting and various issues concerning the minority community were raised in the course.

Dr Gerald Pinto, retired principal demanded the Arivu loan scheme for all the professional courses like hotel management, nursing, and related courses along with Engineering and MBBS courses for which the facility is being provided currently.

Fr Lawrence David Crasta, of Malankara Orthodox Syrian community urged for the proper maintenance of department servers for the ease of conducting the procedures, addressing the meeting he said “Everytime if we go to the department for any work we get an answer stating the servers are down. In the age of optical fibre high speed internet connection such reasons are really unreliable. Government and the department should rely upon some definitive servers in such cases”.

Charles Ambler of CSI church Udupi requested for the proper security measures from the police department for conducting upcoming Christmas and new year festivities. He said, "Our youths will be going from house to house spreading the Christmas message through carols, i request for proper security for our youths during this time and also for the conduction of Christmas and New year mid night festival mass".

The Muslim community representatives demanded to provide proper funds for the creation of crematoriums and also for the repair of the masjid and also for the buildings of the compound wall.

Demands for restarting the “Shaadi Bhagya” or for initiating any such similar schemes were also raised by the community leaders. Leaders also demanded special provisions for NRI’s to register themselves in the voter list.

Addressing the press briefing on the discussions held during the meeting Abdul Azeem said, “We had organized this grievance meeting to know the issues faced by minorities in the district. For the past 3 years such grievance meetings were not organized for various reasons, and now the community has requested these type of meetings for every three months which will be taken care of. Christians and Muslim community leaders have participated today. We will discuss the issues we have received in today's meeting with the district commissioner, CEO and Police superintendent. We received many complaints and requests for simplifying the application submission procedures for various welfare schemes. We get around 1,000 to 2,000 applications for various schemes at the district level but the budget allocation will be limited for a maximum of 40 members. Each person spends thousands of money applying for these schemes in cyber centres. I will write to the government to provide options for applying through phones only by providing Aadhaar card and income certificate details, if the applicant gets selected for the scheme then additional documents can be seeded. I hope to simplify the application filing procedures very soon. I also suggest the government adopt a lottery scheme for choosing the beneficiaries when the applications are in large numbers, this can be done at the district level as well. The minority community leaders have expressed positive thoughts about the police department higher officials, meanwhile they have also complained about the partial behaviour of the lower grade police personnel, this issue will be discussed with the police superintendent.”

“The Muslim community leaders have raised their issues about the creation of crematoriums/kabristans. I have suggested that they choose one common place for three to four masjids together. There are requests for restarting the ‘Shaadi Bhagya” scheme, I suggest the government start a similar scheme to “Sapthapadi” which is being provided for the backward class for the minority communities as well,” he added.

“The Christian community leaders have raised their grievance about the minority status for the schools run by minority communities. Currently the department is starting for at least 20-50% of minority students in the minority schools, but this is abolished by a Supreme court order. The supreme court has directed to give minority status for the schools run by minority managements, this issue will be brought to the notice of the government also. We will also request the government to increase the budget for the minority commission to Rs 5,000 crores. This much of fund is needed for us to provide all the welfare schemes on equal basis to all the minority community members,” he said.

Mujibulla Jafari, special officer, Abdul Muthali, Wakf Advisory Committee member, Yaha Nakva, former member, Wakf Advisory Committee, Poornima Soori, district officer, Minority Department, Amjad, District Wakf officer and others were present.