In a major boost to the minority affairs and madrasah education, the department has received an allocation of Rs 5530.65 crore for the financial year 2024-2025 in the state budget presented at the Assembly today.
The allocation, as claimed, is about 11.7 times more than that of Rs 472 crore allocated in the year 2010-2011 fiscal.
As highlighted in the budget book, the department is said to have released Rs 205.44 crore in the current fiscal in the multi-sectoral development plan (MsDP). Apart from this, Rs 42.30 crore is said to have been released till date in 2023-24, under the Integrated Minority Development Programme (IMDP) scheme to 32 blocks in 14 districts while more than Rs 137 crore have been released in different blocks across 23 districts of the state. Another highlight of today’s budget was the announcement of a ‘Minorities Cultural Development Centre with facilities to develop cultural heritage of the six minority communities including Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis.
The state government has allocated Rs 20 crore for the project which includes the cultural centre to have exhibition halls, training and coaching centres, meeting halls and so on. Under the scheme, training is to be provided to the members of the minority communities through the centre enabling creation of job opportunities for them.
Another department that emerged as a gainer was the state transport system that has been allocated Rs 2187.99 crore in the state budget today. According to the budget specification, the department has collected Rs 2890.27 crore as revenue up to December last year. An underlining project of the department is the West Bengal Inland Water Transport, Logistics and Spatial Development Project, assisted by World Bank, having a state share of around Rs 328 crore and World Bank funding of Rs 772 crore aimed at improving passenger and freight movement across the Hooghly river.