The Times of India 05.11.2009
Minority sops ahead of KMC polls
KOLKATA: As Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) goes to polls next year, the Left Front government is making a desperate attempt to woo minority voters in a bid to retain the Left board. A slew of housing, health, education, sanitation and drinking water projects are lined up in Muslim-dominated pockets of the city.
The projects, worth a whopping Rs 160 crore, is targeted specifically at the community with the message that the Left board is serious about improving their lot. While KMC and the state government will pump in Rs 135 crore, the Centre will pitch in with the balance.
At a meeting a few days ago, the Centre, "in principle", cleared a proposal that allows KMC and the state government to dole out several development schemes for the financially backward Muslims. The projects that have received the nod include 15 ward health units, 200 tube wells, 150 community toilets and 100 Anganwadi schools in minority-dominated pockets and two classrooms each in 25 Urdu-medium schools.
In addition, KMC has planned an upgrade of Muslim burial grounds and ambulances, door-to-door garbage collection, vocational training centres and 30 night shelters in minority dominated areas. It also intends to build hostels for working Muslim men and women and set up 15 Urdu schools including five only for girls. Altogether, 100 fresh recruitments of Urdu and Hindi teachers are to be made for these.
The biggest scheme of the lot is a housing project worth Rs 90 crore for slum-dwellers. Though it is not directly targeted at Muslims, since concentration of poor Muslims living in slums is high, they are expected to benefit most from the project.
The move to woo Muslims follows the community decision to desert the Left at the Lok Sabha polls. A survey conducted at the behest of the state government and KMC vindicated the Sachar Committee report. It showed that minorities comprise 29% of the BPL population in the city and a significant percentage of the city's homeless. It also found that in 37 out of 141 wards, minority households constitute over 30% BPL households.
In this context, the projects are a desperate attempt to set things right ahead of the crucial KMC elections that could set the trend for the Assembly elections a year later. "We will start implementing them soon," an official of the state urban development department confirmed.
Nevertheless, mayor Bikash Bhattacharya and his lieutenant, MMiC (parks and squares) Faiyaz Ahmed Khan, insisted that the projects were based on uplifting the poor and did not target a particular community.
"It has nothing to do with the civic elections," Bhattacharya insisted. Khan, too, stated that KMC had never taken up programmes on the basis of religion. "The projects are for the poor and those living in slums. It is incidental that a majority of slum dwellers are Muslims," he said.
The projects, worth a whopping Rs 160 crore, is targeted specifically at the community with the message that the Left board is serious about improving their lot. While KMC and the state government will pump in Rs 135 crore, the Centre will pitch in with the balance.
At a meeting a few days ago, the Centre, "in principle", cleared a proposal that allows KMC and the state government to dole out several development schemes for the financially backward Muslims. The projects that have received the nod include 15 ward health units, 200 tube wells, 150 community toilets and 100 Anganwadi schools in minority-dominated pockets and two classrooms each in 25 Urdu-medium schools.
In addition, KMC has planned an upgrade of Muslim burial grounds and ambulances, door-to-door garbage collection, vocational training centres and 30 night shelters in minority dominated areas. It also intends to build hostels for working Muslim men and women and set up 15 Urdu schools including five only for girls. Altogether, 100 fresh recruitments of Urdu and Hindi teachers are to be made for these.
The biggest scheme of the lot is a housing project worth Rs 90 crore for slum-dwellers. Though it is not directly targeted at Muslims, since concentration of poor Muslims living in slums is high, they are expected to benefit most from the project.
The move to woo Muslims follows the community decision to desert the Left at the Lok Sabha polls. A survey conducted at the behest of the state government and KMC vindicated the Sachar Committee report. It showed that minorities comprise 29% of the BPL population in the city and a significant percentage of the city's homeless. It also found that in 37 out of 141 wards, minority households constitute over 30% BPL households.
In this context, the projects are a desperate attempt to set things right ahead of the crucial KMC elections that could set the trend for the Assembly elections a year later. "We will start implementing them soon," an official of the state urban development department confirmed.
Nevertheless, mayor Bikash Bhattacharya and his lieutenant, MMiC (parks and squares) Faiyaz Ahmed Khan, insisted that the projects were based on uplifting the poor and did not target a particular community.
"It has nothing to do with the civic elections," Bhattacharya insisted. Khan, too, stated that KMC had never taken up programmes on the basis of religion. "The projects are for the poor and those living in slums. It is incidental that a majority of slum dwellers are Muslims," he said.
