K Chandrasekhar Rao govt announces sops for minorities; separate industrial estate for Muslims to be built

Months after the controversial hike in reservation for Muslims, the Telangana government has now decided to develop an exclusive industrial estate and IT corridor for the minority community, according to media reports. The decision was taken on Monday by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao at a meeting with senior officials and Muslim leaders. It was also decided to construct the Hyderabad International Islamic Cultural Convention Centre on 10 acres of land in Kokapet in Hyderabad. The chief minister directed that work on the project should commence in three weeks. [caption id=“attachment_2983424” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of K Chandrasekhar Rao. PTI[/caption] Deputy chief minister Mahamood Ali, ministers KT Rama Rao and Etela Rajender, AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP in Lok Sabha Asaduddin Owaisi, AIMIM Legislature party leader Akbaruddin Owaisi, state chief secretary SP Singh, government advisor A Khan and other senior officials attended the meeting. The move is likely to attract much criticism from Rao’s political opponents, especially the BJP and RSS, who have earlier slammed the Telangana government for its “minority appeasement policies.” “We are not opposed to any benefits being given to the Muslim community. However, we are opposed to giving quota which will create animosity in the society and it is not good on part of the TRS government to go ahead on this… but knowingly if you still want to do it, it will create lot of mistrust among the people,” Telangana RSS was quoted as saying by The Financial Express. The Telangana government had, in April, passed a bill to increase reservations in jobs and education for backward sections of Muslim community to 12 percent from the earlier four percent. Even as the Bill was being considered, the five BJP MLAs – G Kishan Reddy, K Laxman, NVSS Prabhakar, Ch Ramachandra Reddy and T Raja Singh – raised an uproar in the state Assembly and were expelled from the House, according to a report in The Wire Then a Union minister, Vice-President of India Venkaiah Naidu, had also flayed the move stating that reservations for Muslims will lead to the “creation of another Pakistan”. Moreover, this is not the only instance when the TRS government was accused of “minority appeasement”. The state government had earlier set up 204 residential schools for underprivileged children from the Muslim community which will benefit 1.33 lakh students. Asaduddin Owaisi lauded the residential schools set up by the state government for minorities and said this would bring a revolution in the next 10 years. Then on Monday too, Rao reiterated that all the development schemes initiated by his government should benefit the minorities. He announced that to aid the self-employment of the minority youth, subsidy to units worth Rs one lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh will be given without having any link with the banks. The chief minister said that minorities should have 10 percent quota in the state’s double bedroom housing scheme. Also, tests for recruitment to government jobs will be conducted in the Urdu language along with English and Telugu. It was also decided in the meeting to release Rs 40 crore from the Special Development Fund (SDF) (of the state government) to take up several emergency works under the Hyderabad parliamentary constituency, a press release from Telangana government said. With inputs from agencies