2015 was a hectic year for Minority Affairs Ministry

With issues like Dadri lynching and row over beef eating kicking up a political storm in 2015, Minority Affairs Ministry had to act as fire fighter for the NDA government in addition to envisaging welfare schemes for minority communities. During the year, the ministry came up with some new programmes aimed at providing skill-based training to youth from minorities, restructuring educational institutes and bringing in transparency the way in which scholarship funds were distributed to children from the six communities -- Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsis and Jains. Allegations of "growing intolerance" by renowned authors and the intelligentsia against the government and the 'award wapasi' campaign pushed the ministry into a damage control mode, holding conferences and meetings with stakeholders concerned and interacting with the media to assure communities about the government's commitment to peace. The year saw the government approving doubling of authorised share capital of National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation, a Central Sector Public Enterprise in the ministry to Rs 3,000 crore. In the 2015-16 budget, the government announced launching of an integrated education and livelihood initiative 'Nai Manzil' for the benefit of minority youths who do not have a formal school leaving certificate, enabling them to seek better employment in organised sector. The scheme, launched by Minister Najma Heptulla on August 10, seeks to provide bridge courses to madrassa-educated youth to enable them to pursue higher education. The government recently approved Rs 650 crore for the scheme. The pre-matric, post-matric and merit-cum-means scholarship schemes that aim at educational empowerment of minorities were operationalised on National Scholarship Portal (NSP) from July. Wherever available, bank accounts are being linked with Aadhaar number for direct benefit transfer (DBT) of scholarships. Under the 'Seekho aur Kamao' (Learn and Earn), a placement linked skill development programme for minorities, the ministry started an ambitious plan to train 1.13 lakh beneficiaries in the year, with budgetary allocation of Rs 192.45 crore. .