Lok Sabha Question No. 2887 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-08-06
Subject: Implementation of Minority Welfare Schemes
Ministry: MINORITY AFFAIRS
Asked by: Ms Iqra Choudhary

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF MINORITY AFFAIRS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2887

ANSWERED ON 06/08/2025

## IMPLEMENTATION OF MINORITY WELFARE SCHEMES

2887. MS IQRA CHOUDHARY:

Will the Minister of MINORITY AFFAIRS be pleased to state:

- (a)  whether  the  Government  has  taken  note  of  the  Parliamentary  Panel's  recommendations  on timely implementation of minority welfare schemes;
- (b) if so, the key recommendations including the need to expedite approvals, streamline processes, address delays in scholarship disbursal, review the discontinuation of schemes like Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) and Padho Pardesh and improve monitoring of implementation and expenditure;
- (c)  whether  any  assessment  has  been  conducted  to  evaluate  the  impact  of  discontinuing  these schemes on minority students;
- (d) if so, the details thereof and the steps taken to mitigate such impact, including introduction of alternative support or restructuring of existing schemes; and
- (e) whether a timeline and monitoring mechanism has been fixed/put in place to ensure efficient delivery of minority welfare programmes and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF MINORITY AFFAIRS

## (SHRI KIREN RIJIJU)

(a)  and  (b)  The  Ministry  has  taken  note  of  recommendations  made  in  the  Eighth  Report  of  the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment (Eighteenth Lok Sabha) on 'Demands for Grants (2025-26)' of the Ministry of Minority Affairs.  In this regard, various measures have been  introduced  for  streamlining/strengthening  the  prevailing  system  including  introduction  of Aadhaar Payment Bridge system and Bio-metric authentication system in order to streamline the process and timely disbursal of scholarships, special drives for verification, instruction to States to integrate  their  State  Scholarship  Portals  with  the  National  Scholarship  Portal  etc. The Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) and Padho Pardesh scheme have been discontinued due to the cognizant  reasons  of  overlap  of  these  schemes  with  similar  schemes  of  other  Ministries/ Departments.

- (c)  and  (d)    While  no  such  assessment  has  been  conducted,  the  UGC  and  CSIR  Fellowship Schemes are open for  candidates of  all  social  categories  and  communities  including  minorities. Further, students from minority communities are also covered under National Fellowship Schemes for Scheduled Castes and OBCs implemented by Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.
- (e)  Monitoring  mechanisms  for  Schemes  implemented  by  the  Ministry  are  already  in  place  for efficient implementation of the Schemes of this Ministry. With particular reference to Scholarship Schemes of the Ministry, the Ministry had already onboarded its all three scholarship schemes on a

dedicated scholarship portal i.e. National Scholarship Portal (NSP) 2.0 under URL: www.scholarships.gov.in. for applying online scholarship i.e. Pre-matric, Post Matric and Meritcum-Means based scholarship schemes for students belonging to minority communities. Workshops were conducted and instructions were relayed to all concerned stakeholders to ensure that they take necessary action due on their parts in time to avoid any delay in implementation of these  schemes. The State/UT administrations also monitor the implementation of these schemes regularly with their respective district formations and institutes of their respective States/UTs.

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