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| With no office ready, Antulay spends time in constituency | | |
NEW DELHI, OCT 26
Almost nine months after he was sworn in as Minority Affairs Minister, veteran Congress leader A R Antulay has not been able to use the office allotted to him as it is still under renovation.
The Ministry is operating from a temporary office in Central Delhi with one secretary, two joint-secretaries and some other staff.
With no full-fledged office ready for use, Antulay is spending a great deal of his time in Maharashtra, touring his Raigad constituency.
Ministry sources said the eleventh floor office allotted to him in the CGO complex is expected to be ready by next month.
The 77-year-old leader, a former Maharashtra Chief Minister, recently underwent an eye surgery in Chennai where he spent almost a month before he left to Mumbai.
The ruling UPA drew BJP flak when it announced the formation of a Minority Affairs Ministry, a move the main Opposition party BJP flayed as an act of Muslim appeasement.
His Ministry has pushed for reservation of 15 per cent of Central welfare funds for minority schemes and for increasing the corpus fund of the Maulana Azad Educational Foundation.
Antulay's attempts to get under his purview issues relating to education for minorities from the HRD Ministry, however, have proved futile with Arjun Singh making it clear that he will not part with them.
A proposal by the Minority Affairs Ministry is under the Centre's consideration to provide the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) with its own investigation cell to probe complaints of religious rights violations.
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