The government on Monday promised to implement the Sachar Committee report on status of minorities but stopped short of assuring reservation for dalit Muslims.
"The Sachar Committee's recommendations will be implemented," Minorities Affairs Minister A R Antulay said, replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha.
He, however did not say if the government was ready for a debate on the recommendations in Parliament.
"I did not say that the Sachar Committee report will be discussed in Parliament during the current session," Antulay said.
The Minister said the meeting of minority MPs from all parties, which was attended by some 50 MPs, was not called to discuss the Sachar Committee report - "I invited MPs from all parties as there is no Standing or Consultative Committee of his Ministry."
On the question of providing reservation to Dalit Muslims, he said, "Reservation can be an instrument but is certainly not the goal."
He said he will not promise anything that he may not be able to deliver.
The United Progressive Alliance government, he said, wanted to bring all sections at par and 'will do whatever possible for that'.
"The government is committed to ensuring welfare of minorities. The Prime Minister's New 15-Point Programme for
the Welfare of Minorities is a major step in this direction," Antulay said. "Further, the report of the Working Group on 'Empowering the Minorities' for the XIth Plan (2007-2012), set up by the Planning Commission, contains a number of proposals for educational, social and economic development of minorities."
Meanwhile, the Sachar report states that contrary to popular perception about Muslims' attraction for madarsas, less than four percent of the school-going children of the community attend these religious institutions full time.
The fact has been brought out to argue that modernised madarsas were unlikely to satisfy the educational demand of the community.
The state will have to make provision for maints tream schools in areas where such schools are not available, it said.
'Madarsas should not be looked as an alternative to the regular school, but as a complement', the report said.The Committee has advised the government against expanding its madarsa modernisation scheme, pointing out that it suffers from many deficiencies.
Though the modernisation process was a step in the right direction, it was robbed of its utility because of some deficiencies relating for example to choice of subjects, quality of teachers, accommodation of modern subjects in a time-table intensely packed with traditional subjects, the Sachar Committee said.
'The government will be well advised to review and revamp the scheme before embarking upon its expansion', it said.
It advised the government to work out a mechanism whereby madarsas could be linked with a higher secondary school board so that students wanting to shift to a regular/mainstream education could do so after having passed from these institutions.
With UNI inputs
