By Mumtaz Alam, Muslim Mirror,
New Delhi, April 1: A group of senior alumni of Aligarh Muslim University based in Delhi has demanded the central ministries of Family Welfare and Human Resource Development to set up a well-equipped central hospital and two central schools in the most neglected Okhla minority cluster in the very backyard of corridors of power in Delhi.
The Okhla assembly constituency which has among others Jamia Millia Islamia and Jamia Nagar locality has a dense population of more than 1 million Muslims without any basic facilities of health care and good school education although the health and education are very high priority sectors for the government of India. This neglect is despite the availability of unused Uttar Pradesh government land in the area.
“There are enough UP Government land available in their neighbourhood and if Govt. of India is sincere then both the ministries can write a letter to UP Govt to transfer this land for these vital services. Any available govt land in any neighbour of a population has a right to demand for the very basic services. These vast tracts of available land within the irrigation ministry of UP Govt have no use for any irrigation department purpose and this is matter of willingness for the Central Govt of Delhi to demand this land for their optimal use,” senior AMU alumni P Mohammad and Mohammad Aslam told Muslim Mirror.
The group of AMU alumni has taken a responsibility to further pressurise the Govt of the day in UP to transfer to the central ministries once the ministries will write a formal letter to the govt of UP with full plan of utilization of lands for the purpose of creating health and education infrastructure.
“The majority of the population of this Okhla region is the lower middle class rural migrants from UP and there is no reason for denying this legitimate demands by the Central Govt in Delhi to provide these basic facilities for the migrants population of the UP,” they say.
The AMU alumni are going to meet Health and Family Welfare Minister Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad and Minister of Human Resource Mr. M. M. Pallam Raju soon to place these formal demands with clear time-line for implementation. They would invite both these ministers to visit the Okhla area to understand the worst conditions of the people living without basic health and education infrastructure facilities.
The AMU alumni say these are the basic issues which need to be raised by the community as the young generation wants education and good job, they are not much interested in emotional issues.
“Younger generation of Muslim Indians are only concern about Modern Education, Health, Employment and Rule of Law and we are no way interested to invest all our energy in Babri Mosque, Personal Law, Triple Talaque and Urdu etc.,” say Parwez Mohammad and Mohammad Aslam.
The duo last week met RS Gujral, Secretary, Ministry of Finance in connection with the low budgetary allocation for the minority. In one-hour long meeting, they discussed various issues related to development of the community in comparison to SC and ST.