The Prime Minister’s New 15 Point Programme for the welfare of Minorities was announced in June, 2006. It provides programme specific interventions, with definite goals which are to be achieved in a specific time frame. The objectives of the programme are: a.) Enhancing opportunities for education, b.) Ensuring an equitable share for minorities in economic activities and employment, through existing and new schemes, enhanced credit support for self-employment, and recruitment to State and Central Government jobs; c.) Improving the conditions of living of minorities by ensuring an appropriate share for them in infrastructure development schemes; and d.) Prevention and control of communal disharmony and violence.
An important aim of the new programme is to ensure that the benfits of various governmeht schemes for the under privileged reach the disadvantaged sections of the minority communities. In order to ensure that the benefits of these schemes flow equitably to the minorities, the new programmes envisages location of a certain proportion of development projects in minority concentration areas. It also provides that, wherever possible, 15% of targets and outlays under various schems should be earmarked for the minorities.
The list of schemes included in the New 15 Point Programme, which are amenable to earmarking, is as under:
