Quota no solution to Muslims' backwardness:Salman Khursheed

New Delhi, Jun 9: The country's new Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed today said reservation was not a foolproof solution to remove the backwardness of Muslims.
''What they need more is affirmative action to catch up with other developed sections of the society,'' he said in an interview to UNI In fact, the Constitution does not provide quota for Muslims beyond what they have got under the quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) category, he sought to point out.

''I fail to understand why this question of quota for Muslims always crops up when one talks of backwardness of minorities. I find the discourse meaningless,''he said pointing out that even the Sachar Committee had not found quota enough and that's why it had recommended a number of affirmative actions for Muslims.

Mr Khursheed felt that instead of reservation, he found the setting up of the proposed equal opportunities commission as more important for minorities.

The Sachar Committee has recommended creation of such a commission very strongly and in fact once created, this commission would go a long way in ensuring that minorities got a level playing field to come in the mainstream of development, he said.

The Minister said his first priority would be to see this commission in place. ''We are in the process of consulting other ministries and I hope that it would materialise soon but still I can't give any date,'' he said.

He said minorities, especially Muslims, badly required more education and representation in jobs, which could be ensured by the kind of affirmative action proposed by the Sachar Committee.

There is also the need for providing better civic amenities to the areas inhabited by minorities and efforts were underway to achieve this task under the multisectoral scheme, said the Minister.

In this connectioon he said his Ministry was soon going to release money for the multisectoral plan being implemented in the minority concentration districts under the Sachar Committee recommendations.

All these programmes need focus and funding and his job as Minister was to see that they got that, he said.

UNI