Govt to check irregularities in Muslim bodies

New Delhi, Jun 25: The Centre is planning a massive revamp of state waqf boards and other Minorities welfare bodies to check rampant corruption, irregularities and inefficiency.

Independence of state waqf boards will be checked, for which the Central Waqf Act might be amended, while the National Minorities Development Finance Corporation and Maulana Azad Foundation would be subjected to thorough overhauling.

The axe is likley to fall on the Maulana Azad Foundation first.

The post of the executive vice-president will be abolished soon because, according to the Ministry, it is not needed at all.

''All these bodies were created to work for the economic welfare of Muslims and other minorities but their working left much to be desired, and I have been receiving complaints of malpractices in these organisations,'' Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay told UNI.

''I want these bodies to work effectively and effeciently to uplift the community as it is my mandate,'' he added.

The Minister said the state waqf boards needed to be reformed as they had totally failed to make any difference to the life of Muslims despite having massive property in hand.

''My first priority will be to make them work under the Central Waqf Council,'' Mr Antulay added.

''State Waqf Boards cannot function independently. They have to be accountable to their apex body. We have had enough of inept handling of resources, misappropriation of funds and mismanagement in these boards. It was now high time that things were set right,'' said the Minister.

If an amendment in the Waqf Board was needed to keep the state waqf boards under the purview of the Central council, it would be brought in, he added.

He said waqf had massive property but due to inefficiency of the those at the helm of affairs, a substantial section of it had been encraoched upon or was under unauthorised use.

He said as per his understanding, Muslims would need no outside help if all the waqf property was properly utilised.

''Waqf is a wonderful institution in a welfare society, but unfortunately, corruption has eaten into its vitals,' he said.

Mr Antulay said complaints had been received against the working of the Minorities Development Finanace Corporation and he was personally not satisfied with the way it functions. The corporation has surplus staff whose maintenance was creating financial burden and these funds could be utilised for other purposes, he said.

Mr Antulay said he was going to revamp the corporation to make it an effective instrument in the economic uplift of minorities.

The Ministry was also exploring ways and means to increase the corpus of corporation, the Minister said.

The working of Maulana Azad Foundation also needs serious attention as a number of irregularities in its fuctioning have been reported, said Mr Antulay.

''First of all, I am going to scrap the post of executive vice- -president as after a thorougfh examination, I have found no justification for the post,'' he said.

''The person holding the post was appropriating allowances which exceeded those of an MP, and all this money was of course a diversion from the purpose for which it was meant,'' said the Minister.

'I want Muslims and other minorities to be able to extract full benefits from the government schemes, and ensure it is one of the main tasks before the Ministry, he added.

UNI