Injustice to minority jobless youth: Congress

Nampally: Alleging that the Telangana State Minority Finance Corporation (TSMFC) has failed to implement the bank-linked loan-cum-subsidy scheme, the Congress leaders on Wednesday represented the matter to the officials at TSMFC office in Haj House.

Chairman at TPCC Minorities Department Shaik Abdullah Sohail called on the Director of Minorities Welfare AHN Kanthi Wesley and brought the matter to her notice that on August 29, 2018, the Minorities Welfare Department issued GO 41 and two days later (on August 31, 2018), the guidelines were issued to give 100% subsidy to eligible beneficiaries for unit cost up to Rs 50,000 and 80% subsidy for unit cost from Rs 50,001 to Rs 100,000. However, even after nine months, not a single rupee has been issued to any of the beneficiaries.

Defunct website

Sohail also pointed out that the official website of the corporation, www.http://tsmfc.telangana.gov.in/, has been non-functional for the past several months. It is showing a message 'Maintenance Mode is on.

Website will be available soon.' "Under this scenario, how do you expect eligible beneficiaries to apply for loans or for any other schemes? Therefore, we also request you to kindly start the website on immediate basis and provide necessary guidance to the lakh of poor and jobless youth of the minority communities who have been waiting for the last 5 years to get some assistance from the state government through TSMFC," he noted.

Some1.53 lakh applicants

In the official letter addressed to Syed Akbar Hussain, Chairman of TSMFC, Sohail stated that several tall promises and huge announcements were made by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, Home Minister Md Mahmood Ali and Minister Koppula Eshwar, but the implementation appears to be nil, especially with regard to loan-cum-subsidy scheme.

Nearly 1.53 lakh youth belonging to minority communities applied for loan-cum-subsidy schemes in the year 2015-16. Regrettably, these applications are still pending for unknown reasons and none of the applicant, as per our information, has got a single penny as loan to start small business/trade.

Further, the TSMFC has stopped taking applications under loan-cum-subsidy scheme since 2015-16. "We request you to kindly furnish information, with district-wise break up on the number of applications received under the scheme, along with their status," he stated.

Roadmap for scheme

In view of elections and the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), the Telangana Government came up with Vote-an-Account and allocated Rs. 573.10 crore for the minority welfare in the first quarter of financial year 2019-20. Of this, only Rs. 24.41 crore was earmarked for bank-linked-subsidy scheme.

The first quarter (April-June 2019) will be over in next two weeks, but the TSMFC took no steps to disburse the allocated amount among the jobless youth. If 1.53 lakh applications received from jobless minority youth in 2015-16 is taken as the benchmark, then we can assume that every year, at least 1.50 lakh youth would be in need of loans to start their small businesses.

Therefore, in the last five years, the total number of aspirants or expectants of loan under bank-linked-subsidy scheme can be estimated around 7.5 lakh. However, the allocated amount of Rs. 24.41 crore will be sufficient only for 2,441 jobless youth, out of over 7 lakh expectants if each of them is given Rs 1 lakh assistance.

"The TSMFC has neither issued any notification or advertisement in any newspaper seeking applications from eligible beneficiaries. We would like to request you to kindly give clarification in the media on the process of applications, eligibility criteria, documents required to be submitted and the deadline by which this scheme will be implemented," he added.