Book of Integration Council New - Ministry of Home Affairs

placed directly under the Chief Minister, thereby ensuring coordination with
various Departments. As per the 2001 Census, the minorities comprise of
19.3% of the State's total population of 96.87 million. A Budgetary provision
of Rs. 167.62 crores has been made for the current financial year 2008-
09 for implementing various welfare schemes for the development of minorities
in Maharashtra. It includes a provision of Rs. 50 crores for additional
share capital to the Maulana Azad Minorities Financial Development Corporation,
which exists to disburse low interest loans for the self-employment
and education to the minorities.
6. The activities embraced by the Minority Development Department include
the provision of free coaching to the weaker sections, among the minorities, to
prepare and enable them to compete in the entrance examinations for professional
courses like M.B.A., M.B.B.S., Engineering etc. Rs.4.4 crores has been set
aside for this scheme during the current year and would be used to provide a
maximum of Rs. 20,000/- per student for payment of coaching fees, and supplemented
with a stipend of Rs.1,500/- per student. The Minority Development Department
has also taken up the establishment of Residential Schools for minority community
students in areas where there is a concentration of minorities. Further, the State
has identified 43 Towns wherein concentration of minority communities exists.
Industrial Training Institutes will be set up in these Towns for which an amount
of Rs. 17 crores has been provided. For setting up 10 Hostels for minority girl
student and working girls in the first phase, an amount of Rs. 3.5 crores is
provided. An incentive through the provision of attendance fees for each day for
9.61 lakhs of students from the minority communities has been envisaged, and
for which an amount of Rs.24.14 crores has been earmarked. Further, two pairs
of School Uniforms for each child will be provided to 5.63 lakh school children,
who are studying in the Primary Classes in Urdu Schools. An amount of Rs. 18
crores has been earmarked for imparting short term training programmes and for
self-employment oriented courses such as Dress Designing, Beauticians' course,
Catering, Handicrafts, repairing of Computers, T.Vs. and Electronic goods, as
also Computer operations have been taken up. 50% of these courses will be
reserved for girls.
7. In addition to the above schemes, the State Government is also
implementing various educational schemes introduced by the Ministry of Minority
Affairs (GOI) for minority students. Rs. 6.8 crores have been provided as
25% share of the State Govt. for the Pre Matric Scholarship Scheme which
will benefit 36,800 students. The State Govt. is also successfully implementing
a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Merit-cum-Means based scholarship for
students belonging to the minority communities for Technical and Professional
courses at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.
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