Mangalore: 12 Minority Beneficiaries Receive Cars under Cluster Scheme
The Hindu
Pics: Dayananda Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Networl
MANGALORE, Aug 7: Ibrahim of Salethur and 11 others like him have a reason to smile.
They received keys to swanky mid-segment cars under the cluster scheme of the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC), New Delhi, here on Wednesday.
The scheme is being implemented by the Karnataka Minorities Development Corporation in Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga, Mangalore, and Bellary corporation limits.
D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Mangalore MP, who handed over the keys to the beneficiaries, said that although there were many schemes for minorities and backward classes, lack of information about them was proving to be the biggest problem.
Middlemen thrive in an environment where there waslack of information, Gowda said and advised the officials concerned to ensure that this lacuna was addressed.
“The selection of right beneficiaries for any government scheme should be done at gram sabhas,” Gowda said. He added that the authorities must work in this direction. “Failure of the authorities to rein in middlemen will effectively scuttle any programme,” he said.
Advice
Advising the beneficiaries to make the best use of the vehicles provided to them to earn a livelihood, Gowda said pro-active measures taken up by the State Government for welfare of minorities had proved its opponents’ charge that it was “anti-minority” wrong. “The party will address these charges through its welfare actions and not indulge in mud-slinging,” he said.
Former chairman of Karnataka Minorities Development Corporation Anwar Manippady said the beneficiaries were selected under the Centrally-sponsored cluster scheme.
Stating that the NMDFC was implementing the scheme across 40 clusters in India during 2008-09, Manippady pointed out that the State had received Rs. 1.5 crore under the scheme and added that the 12 cars distributed to beneficiaries by Gowda cost Rs. 42 lakh.
Mangalore City South MLA N. Yogish Bhat observed that timely repayment by beneficiaries would facilitate the corporation to extend similar help to others.
The function had a sour moment when Mangalore MLA U. T. Khader of the Congress expressed displeasure over party MLAs K. Abhaychandra Jain and B. Ramanath Rai being ignored. Gowda told Khader that the scheme was being implemented only in corporation limits and did not concern the constituencies of other Congress MLAs. Interestingly, Khader’s name did not figure in the invitation itself.
Khader urged Gowda to extend the scheme to people at the village level and also take steps to provide laptops or personal computers to minorities to enable them to earn a livelihood. Khader also suggested that the KMDC take up housing schemes for minorities in the future.
Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat president K. P. Sucharitha Shetty spoke.