The Ministry of Minority was established in 2006 to empower the minority communities namely Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims. The Ministry seeks to create an enabling environment for strengthening the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi–religious character of our nation. The mission is to improve the socio–economic condition of the minority communities through affirmative action and inclusive development so that every citizen has equal opportunity to participate actively in building a dynamic nation to facilitate an equitable share for minority communities in education, employment, economic activities and to enhance their upliftment.

The major achievements of the Ministry of Minority Affairs  during  the year 2023  are as follows:

PM VIKAS Scheme:

The Ministry of Minority Affairs (MoMA) has conceptualized the Pradhan Mantri Virasat Ka Samvardhan (PM VIKAS) Scheme, that subsumed/converged five existing schemes of the Ministry viz. Seekho aur Kamao (SAK), USTTAD, Hamari Dharohar, Nai Roshini, Nai Manzil. The aim of the scheme is to cover the life cycle of under privilege segment of minority community and focus on providing livelihood opportunities. The scheme has been planned to be implemented across four components namely:

• Skilling and Training Component
• Leadership and Entrepreneurship Component, with credit support
• Education Component for school dropouts; and
• Infrastructure Development Component.

The Ministry provided training to 9,63,448 beneficiaries under the scheme.

Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram

Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram (PMJVK) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, which is being implemented by the Ministry of Minority Affairs with the objective to develop infrastructure projects, which are community assets, in the identified areas with development deficits for socio-economic development of the said areas. In 2022-23, the revised PMJVK has been approved by the Government for continuation over the 15th Finance Commission Cycle i.e., during FY 2022-23 to 2025-26. The Revised PMJVK Scheme is implemented for all Districts of the Country including all the Aspirational Districts. Projects are approved in the identified areas where the concentration of minority population is more than 25% in the catchment area (15 KM radius).

In 2022-23, projects approved under the scheme includes school buildings, residential schools, hostels, ITIs, skill centres, health projects including hospitals, health centres, Sadbhav Mandap, Community hall, sports projects like sports complex, working women hostels, etc. Ministry of Minority Affairs in collaboration with National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO has started geo tagging of the infrastructure constructed under the scheme.

National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC)

National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC) is a Govt. Corporation under section 8 of the Companies Act 2013, under the administrative control of Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India. The Corporation has been set up to promote Socio-Economic development of Backward Sections amongst the Minority Communities through the State Channelising Agencies (SCAs) nominated by the respective State Governments/UT Administration and Canara Bank, preference being given to the occupational group and women. The Central Government has notified six Minorities viz. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists Parsis, & Jains under the National Minorities Commission Act, 1992.

During F.Y. 2022-23, NMDFC had achieved highest ever credit disbursement to the tune of Rs. 881.70 Cr. covering over 2.05 lakh beneficiaries as against disbursement of Rs. 700.00 Cr. covering over 1.60 lakh beneficiaries in 2021-22.Further, since inception NMDFC has disbursed more than Rs. 8,300 Crs. covering over 22.5 lakh beneficiaries out of which more than 85% beneficiaries are women.

NMDFC launched Software namely MILAN (Minority Loan Accounting Software for NMDFC) to digitize loan accounting processes between applicants, SCAs & NMDFC including integration of MIS portal of NMDFC on which data of 12 lakhs beneficiaries is available. Android  and IOS version of MILAN Mobile app has also been launched.

Haj Pilgrimage 2023

The Haj 2023 operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have been completed successfully with excellent coordination and cooperation between the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Haj Committee of India and other stakeholders involved in the Haj Operations.

The major highlights of the Haj-2023 are as under:-

1. For the first time, single ladies were allowed to apply for Haj under Lady Without Mehram (LWM) category, without the requirement of making a grouping. Consequently, more than 4000 ladies, which is an all time high, successfully applied under LWM category in Haj-2023.

b. 500 seats under Government Discretionary quota has been completely done away with in Haj-2023 and the seats under this quota have been merged into regular allocation mechanism so as to maximize opportunity for the eligible citizens and to ensure that no VIP culture is propagated.

3. A total of 477 buildings, well-equipped with basic amenities and facilities, were hired at Makkah for the comfortable stay of the Indian pilgrims.
4. Administrative deputationists were drawn from among CAPF personnel so as to ensure better professionalism and services in aid and assistance of the pilgrims.

e. To ensure better health facilities for pilgrims, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoH&FW) and its agencies were directly involved during Haj 2023 for initial screening of Haj pilgrims as well as for selecting and deputing doctors and paramedics for the aid and assistance of the pilgrims.

6. Information Technology was extensively harnessed in the pilgrimage operations which included portals such as e-Health of MoH&FW which was effectively utilized to create and maintain health database of all Indian pilgrims who availed medical facilities during the Haj period.
7. For Haj-2023, the Government of India succeeded in getting accommodation in Markazia area of Madinah for about 65% of pilgrims proceeding through HCoI, which is a record.
8. Feedback entries from more than 25000 pilgrims have been received on the Feedback portal developed by this Ministry during Haj-2023, providing valuable feedback and inputs for enabling the betterment of facilities and services in the subsequent years.
1. Strict enforcement of Haj Group Organiser (HGO) policy and GST laws for HGOs has led to better compliance which has improved the quality of services for the Haj pilgrims. Improved tax compliance from HGOs has led to more than Rs 200 crore tax revenue for the exchequer.

ICT Activities of the Ministry of Minority Affairs

A number of initiatives have been taken by Ministry of Minority Affairs to automate process by implementing ICT systems. Web Portals have been created and hosted for schemes of this Ministry such as:

Scheme for supporting capacity building initiatives to preserve traditional arts and crafts of minority communities

Free Coaching and allied Scheme for the Candidates/Students belonging to Minority Communities

On the portals, on-line Applications are invited from Programme Implementing Agencies (PIAs), and Processed for Funds Allocation and transferred. Monitoring the Utilization of Funds through Physical and Financial Progress Reports submitted on-line by PIAs. Next Installments of Funds are Sanctioned on satisfactory performance by PIAs as per guidelines of the Scheme. Final submission of Utilization Certificate by PIAs online.

Screening out/ deleting the duplicate beneficiaries using unique identification numbers as well as other parameters are being done automatically.

Implementation of schemes included development of web application using Database servers, usage of Virtual Machines and other state of art technologies.

Development of ICT system in-house has also been undertaken by the Ministry using latest technologies that include free and open source software. It is planned to continue to deploy latest technologies to strive towards vision@2047.

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SS/TFK