Religious heads thank CM for funds

Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Wednesday said that only the Congress party and the Congress government were the most secular ones in the country and committed to the welfare and well-being of minorities, especially Muslims.

A 50-member delegation of religious heads and elders of the Muslim community called on the chief minister at his camp office on Wednesday and thanked him for sanctioning Rs 15 crore for repairs to mosques and churches.

Addressing the delegation, the chief minister said his government enhanced the budget for minorities for this year to Rs 489 crore, whereas it was only Rs 30 crore during 2004-05.

More coaching centres to prepare minority students for competitive examinations would be opened at Nizamabd, Kadapa and Chittoor soon, in addition to the existing four centres in Hyderabad, Guntur, Visakhapatnam and Kurnool.

Around 30,000 minority students did engineering and 1,000 minority students completed medicine as the State government provided four percent reservation for minorities, the chief minister said.

About 2,000 vidya volunteers were appointed in Madarsas through Rajiv Vidya Mission, he added.

Moulana Saifullah Viqar Pasha, Moulana Ghulam Samdhani, Moulana Syed Hamid, Moulana Qutub Quadri, Moulana Liyaqath Hussain Rizvi, Moulana Fazlullah Quadri, Moulana Raouf Baghdadi, AA Khan, Mohd Javeed, Sajid Khan and Taher Bin Hamdaan were among those who called on the chief minister.