Hyderabad: The condition of the minority budget in Telangana is becoming very much similar to that of Zakat, as the distribution is being done but the community is hardly benefited. As a whole, people pay Zakat, but the purpose of paying Zakat does not seem to be fulfilled. Similarly, the budget allocated for minorities is being released as per the government’s claim, but there is no upswing observed in the condition of the minorities.
If the government is showing seriousness in allocating and issuing the budget for the minorities, then where is this budget going and who is benefiting from the government schemes? If we review the budget spent by the government during the last 4 years, then every Muslim citizen of Telangana should get at least 13 thousand rupees from the minority welfare department, but where is this budget of the government being spent?
The government had announced a total allocation of 1724.69 crores for the Minority Welfare Department in the year 2022-23, in which 1513.70 crore is being claimed to be released for the Minority Welfare Department and only 973 crores 55 lakhs have been spent by the department so far.
According to the claims, the government had allocated Rs 1344.77 crore in 2019-20 and released Rs 1536.89 crore, but the expenditure was shown is Rs 1270.77 crore. It is also being claimed that additional funds were released from the government in the financial year 2019-20. In the year 2020-21, an appropriation of 1513.46 crore is being claimed and a total of 1522.597 crore is being issued.
In the year 2020-21, additional budget was allocated, but if it is observed in the matter of expenditure, only 1093 crore 89 lakh was spent. Similarly, during the financial year 2021-22 1606.39 crore was allocated, 1646.22 crore released and expenditure of 1286.38 crore have been presented and it is being claimed that additional budget has been allocated during this period as well.
On the whole, the budget allocated from the government to the minority welfare department in the last 4 years is clamed to be at 6189.31 crore and 6219.4 crore was released and the total expenditure is shown as 4624.59 lakhs, despite the fact that the requests of the applicants in most of the schemes of the government are not uniform.
According to the details prepared by the Department of Minority Welfare in the consolidation of applications for Chief Minister Overseas Scholarships Scheme, 3711 applications have been received in the last 4 years and out of them 1537 applicants have been selected and approved for scholarships and 1060 applicants have received the funds. Thus 477 applications are still pending with the Minority Welfare Department. According to the department’s claim, approved applications for the financial year 2019-20 and 2020-21 are not pending, while 227 applications for the financial year 2021-22 and 250 applications for the year 2022-23 are still pending with the department.
The authenticity of the Minority Welfare Department’s claim can be gauged from the fact that several applicants who have received notification of transfer of funds to their accounts through SMS have not yet received the money. The complainants include students from 2020 to the end of 2022 who are awaiting funds.
In the Shadi Mubarak scheme, the government claims that since the year 2019, funds have been released to 1,14,464 applicants out of 1,23,958 applications received. However, if the data of the Minority Welfare Department is reviewed, the number of beneficiaries of the Shadi Mubarak scheme has started to decline gradually since the year 2019. In the year 2019-20, 36,311 applicants were issued funds under this scheme, while during 2020-21 this number decreased to 29,258, then during the year 2021-22 this number was recorded at 29,887. And this number has decreased by 10,000 during 2022-23 with only 19,088 people benefiting through the scheme.
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