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While welcoming the directive of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to all chief ministers on minorities welfare, the Christian community has urged him not to overlook Dalit, Tribal, MBC and poor Christians. In a press statement issued in New Delhi on 12 September 2006, Dr John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council, said, “The Christian community welcomes Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's directions to State Chief Ministers on 10 September 2006 to fix targets for each programme under the new 15-Point Programme for the Welfare of Minorities. But the community also urges him to ensure that micro minorities such as the Christians are not overlooked in this.” Dr John Dayal said past experience unfortunately had shown that the Central Government's development schemes for minorities either ignored or bypassed Christians, apparently because they did not constitute a geographically concentrated, politically important or strong group in terms of their vote power. The result had been that disbursement of money, jobs, entrepreneurship schemes and particularly social and political empowerment hardly took into account the Christian community, especially those belonging to Dalit, Tribal and most backward communities. ”Dr Singh's emphasis on setting up monitoring implementation is exactly what the Christian community had demanded in vain during the formation of the Tenth and Eleventh Five Year plans. We hope the Committee of Secretaries at the Centre, which is being asked to submit a report to the Union Cabinet, will take special care of looking at the case of the Christian community. We hope similar mechanisms planned in the State capitals will also focus on the micro groups,” Dr John Dayal said. The Christian leader said, “We are particularly happy that the Prime Minister had focussed attention on equity in employment in public sector undertakings. Christian tribals, Dalits and MBCs living in the poorest parts of India hardly figure in significant jobs at any level in these units. In many earlier representations, we had pointed out that even in area specific schemes in which the community should have been included on first principles, there seemed to be systematic effort to exclude them as a group.” In the recast 15-Point Programme should include specific interventions that would ensure equitable flow of benefits to the minorities. “We hope these aberrations of the past will be remedied. This will become easier if the Prime Minister were to listen to our request to set up a panel on the lines of the Justice Sachchar committee now examining economic, social, developmental and political infirmities of the Muslim community.” Dr John Dayal said, “We share with the Prime Minister his anxiety in maintaining communal peace and harmony. In this context, we demand positive action at all levels against hate campaigns and demonizing our community. This has led to unprovoked attacks on pastors, priest and nuns, and even on girls and housewives.”
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