JEDDAH, 2 June — The southern state of Karnataka has taken up an ambitious housing program for 1.4 million slum dwellers in 21 cities of the state, said the state’s Housing Minister Qamarul Islam here late Thursday.
There are 2,300 slums in the state out of which 437 are in Bangalore alone, the minister said. As many as 30 percent of the total slum dwellers are Muslim, Islam said.
In the ongoing phase of the slum upgradation program, 125,000 one-room housing units have already been distributed, out of which 22,000 have been allotted to poor Muslims. These houses are fitted with electricity connections, water supply and other basic amenities. A total of one million housing units have to be distributed by the government under this program.
The cost of this project is 72.3 million rupees, and the state government is providing 54 million rupees. But a larger chunk is being given by some Japanese banks, he said. The cost of one unit is 25,000 rupees, the minister said, and added that the government is providing 10,000 rupees as state subsidy, while the allottee has to give 5,000 rupees, and rest of the amount is provided by banks to the allottee on nominal interest payable in 15 years.
Islam who started his political career with the Muslim League, joined to the Congress party before the assembly polls in 1999. Justifying his decision of joining the Congress, Islam said that after having a stint with the Janata Dal and the third forces, “now I firmly believe that no credible alternative to the Hindutva forces is possible without the Congress, so I joined the party and am happy that it has formed the government in Karnataka and is very much concerned about the uplift of the Muslim minority.” He said that an action plan for the overall development of Muslims, which was approved by the 1998 budget session of the assembly but no government order was passed for its adoption, has now been taken up with the Krishna government.
The implementation of this action plan was included in the Congress manifesto also before the last assembly polls and now the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, is morally bound to implement it. All the departmental secretaries have been instructed by the government to implement the action plan in its totality.
Islam, who was the first ever Muslim to win the Gulbarga parliamentary seat on Janata Dal ticket in 1996, said that “to safeguard the interest of the Muslim minority we have formed a Muslim Legislature Forum, and all the Muslim MLAs, irrespective of their party affiliations, are members of the forum to raise the Muslim issues.” This is the reason that this time there are five Muslim ministers — four of Cabinet rank and one state minister, in the Krishna Cabinet, Islam said.
In this context, 10 to 15 demands were put before the government, which include raising of government grant from 5.9 crore rupees to 10 crore for the Wakf Board, survey of the Wakf properties by a professional group, development of these properties to make them more beneficial to the community, constitution of Madarsa Education Board in the state, and the formation of a Wakf tribunal to settle expeditiously its dispute. All these demands are expected to be passed by the July session of the assembly, the minister said.
Islam also addressed a gathering organized by Hyderabad-Karnataka NRI Association here at Lasani Restaurant, and stressed the need of a better educational facilities for the NRI students in India. Siadat Ali Khan of Khak-e-Taiba Trust, had raised the issue in his welcome speech.
