In the wake of his public sparring with Narendra Modi, which led to an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between the BJP and JD(U), Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is poised to release a report card with a special focus on minorities. The report card, scheduled to be released on Friday, will formalise the government?s decision to lift the ban on registration of madarsas imposed since 1994. It would mean that about 2,700 madarsas would now be eligible to get a government grant, so far available to only 1,127 madarsas.
A government source said: ?In the three meetings attended by the chief minister and the seven meetings chaired by the chief secretary on the report card in the last one month, keeping the spotlight on minority schemes was the unwritten message?.
The government has appointed 11,458 Urdu teachers in primary schools. The Nitish government?s report card will also highlight the opening of 1,293 Talimi Markaj to prepare out-of-school Muslim children to enroll in class four. These schools have so far enrolled 49,720 children below 13 years.
In its much-hyped ?Hunar? scheme that gives vocational training in rural health, rural engineering, data entry, tailoring and beautician courses, the government has trained 13,768 Muslim girls in the first batch and 25,000 Muslim girls in the second phase. Trained girls have got Rs 2,500 each to buy kits for their respective courses. About 25,000 EBC and SC girls have also been trained under the scheme.
The government has also started providing a revolving seed money to the Bihar State Shia Wakf Board and the Bihar State Sunni Wakf Board to maintain Wakf property. A government official said that the report card also claims that the government has allocated Rs 2 crore for opening coaching centres to prepare Muslim candidates for the job of constables.