Minorities Commission to set up awareness centres

Hyderabad, June 17: In an effort to create awareness among the minorities, the Andhra Pradesh State Minorities Commission has decided to establish 10 Awareness Centers across the State.

The proposed awareness centers will provide quality information to the minorities on different subjects and issues such as Information on Scholarships, Passports, Ration Cards, and Arogya Sri Scheme.  The Minorities Commission will take the support and cooperation from volunteers, NGOs and media in ensuring the Awareness Centres, to be set up on pilot basis, reaches large section of the minorities across the State.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Minorities Commission chairman Abid Rasool Khan said that the fundamental purpose of awareness centers was to disseminate quality information on the benefits and rights of the minorities in the State to ensure that they enjoy their rightful benefits and become aware of their rights.

Abid Rasool Khan informed that it received about 4 Lakh applications for scholarships from the Engineering and Medical stream students in the year 2012. And with the help of this awareness programme, the Minorities Commission intends to reach out to more students and expects to receive about 10 Lakh applications. In this context, the Minorities Commission also proposes to request the state Government for the sanction of about Rs 10 Crores for various purposes.

The Minorities Commission is also exploring options and trying for a separate quota for the BC-E candidates in the upcoming Panchayat Elections, he said.

The chairman informed that in the last 4-5 days alone it received about 80 petitions which are mostly related to civil issues and police cases. He reiterated that there would not be any compromise in protecting the rights of the minorities in the State.

Commission’s members Sarabjit Singh and Goutam Jain Veer were also present in the press conference.