Hyderabad: Hyderabad MP and AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi urged the Telangana Government to announce a scheme for economic empowerment of extremely poor Muslims in the State. He participated in a symposium on Monday in Hyderabad on Muslims in Telangana: Poverty and other challenges.

Owaisi in his address at the symposium said that Telangana Muslims face deprivation like Dalits; he demanded that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to extend the same benefits provided under Dalit Bandhu to Muslims living below poverty line. If extremely poor Muslim households are given the same amount, it would go a long way in improving their lives, he said.

Owaisi pointed out that Dalit Bandhu a revolutionary scheme and it is the country’s largest cash transfer programme. He hailed the visionary step by the Chief Minister. He pointed out that there are around 8.8 Muslim households in Telangana, and the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) has estimated that about 8.5 per cent Muslims live under below poverty line.

This is not an astronomical amount by any measure. We wouldn’t even need new allocation: the unutilized minority budget in the last 4 years would amount to Rs 1,800 crore, he said. Experts at the symposium provided empirical data on social, educational and economic backwardness of Muslims in Telangana.