NCM seeks full report from Gujarat govt. on employment scheme

New Delhi, May 31 (UNI) The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) has sought a full report from the Gujarat government on reports published in a prominent national daily, alleging that Muslims of Panchmahals, Banaskantha and Sabarkantha districts of Gujarat are being denied benefits of the Centrally-sponsored National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

Taking a suo motu cognisance of the report appearing in the Indian Express, NCM Secretary Deepa Jain Singh said it made a ''disquieting reading'', suggesting that the Muslim community had been kept out of the scheme ''through a strategy of mixing disinformation with no information and prejudice.'' Ms Singh said the news report alleged that Muslims in these three districts had been kept out of the employment scheme and thus denied benefits to which they were entitled.

The Gujarat government has, however, trashed the reports, saying ''this story is totally baseless and far from truth.'' A state government official quoted Panchmahals (Godhra) District Collector DH Brahmbhatt as saying that the employment scheme was being implemented by the District Rural Development Agency without any bias against the Muslim community.

In Eral village of Panchmahals, no Muslim families were denied work or registration.

''The mention of Mr. Yusufbhai Ibrahim Sheikh as Deputy Sarpanch of Eral is also not correct as he has stated in the written statement as well as in a videographed interview that he has not complained to anyone,'' he said.

In a written statement, Mr Sheikh said he was fully aware of the scheme and all other Muslim families were also aware of it as most of them were employed or engaged in works like driving, vehicle repairs, electric repairs or working in their own establishments or agriculture.

The village official also stated that so far no one from the Muslim families had applied for work under the scheme and ''they were all briefed in Gram Sabha...At present, no Muslim is interested to get the job under the scheme as they are sufficiently employed and they are not inclined to do the manual labour work.'' MORE UNI SKS HS KP1847