Rejigged Minorities Panel for legal complaints

CHENNAI: In an attempt to attach special importance to legal clarifications and complaints of people from minority communities, the National Commission for Minority Communities would be restructured so as to include a strengthened legal consultancy cell, said its chairperson Wajahat Habibullah.He was giving a lecture on the role of the commission in education at Justice Basheer Ahmed Syed College on Saturday. As part of the restructuring process, an exclusive section will be formed to monitor the implementation of the government’s 15-point programme for minorities, he said.In order to accommodate the new sections, the national commission would also be setting up another premises in Delhi, he explained. Being a body constituted for the welfare of the five minority communities — Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Parsis — the commission could be a much stronger force, he noted.Speaking at the event, Moosa Raza, chairman of the South Indian Educational Trust, asked for an increase in the UGC grant to establish hostels for girl students, citing that the Rs 1-crore grant offered is too low to even buy land in the city to construct the hostel. Lack of hostel facilities, toilet and transport facilities continue to be important reasons for Muslim women to stay away from school, he noted. Less than 50 per cent of Muslim women in India are literate, he said, adding that the real scenario could be worse as the criteria for defining a literate person was currently very low. He also urged the Centre and the Ministry of Minority Affairs to take the recommendations and records of the minorities’ commission seriously, and implement the same. He also requested that girl schools be started in all minority communities-centric areas and that grants and special concessions be awarded to minority-run institutions in education, especially in providing clean water and sanitation facilities.It is high time a parliamentary committee for Minority Community Schemes be introduced, along those on the lines of that for SCs/STs, he noted.