In a bid to further prioritise and penetrate benefits to minority communities, the government is envisaging to take up special schemes for such groups of people to the village level in the 12th Plan (2012-17) against the current system of considering district as the implementation level unit.
The plan document, which has been prepared for the next plan, suggests that villages that remain outside the identified Minority Concentrated Districts (MCDs) under Minority Special Development Plan (MSDP) and are deprived of the developmental benefits, there is an urgent need to ensure that such deficit villages with 50 per cent or above minority population should be provided with special inputs through a dedicated programme in the 12th Plan.
The steering committee has recommended that instead of the current focus on MCDs, blocks with minority population concentration should be adopted as the area unit for implementing MSDP.
The recommendations, a copy of which is with this newspaper, also highlighted the imperative “to reach individual beneficiaries among the minorities” and also their localities and hence the programme should adopt project wise approach ensuring “coverage of beneficiaries and their localities to fulfill the objective of removing the development deficits among the minorities”.
It said, “Blocks and villages with larger minority concentration should be given priority under the MCDs. In order to cover the minority concentrated pockets and villages that remain outside the identified MCDs under MSDP and are deprived of the developmental benefits, there is an urgent need to ensure that such development deficit villages should be provided with developmental inputs through a special programme in the 12th Plan.” The steering committee has gone further in suggesting that direct targeting of minority populations and minority habitations should be a made a specific condition for approval of all plans under PM’s 15-point programmeand MSDP.