Minorities panel working with just 2 members, as 5 posts remain vacant

NEW DELHI: The seven-member National Commission for Minorities is currently functioning with just two members. Since the post of NCM chairman fell vacant, NCM vice-chairman Manjit Singh Rai has been officiating as chairman. Former NCM chief, Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi’s tenure ended in the last week of May.
With management of Covid-19 pandemic taking precedence for now, it appears unlikely that these vacancies will be filled up anytime soon. When asked about the absence of a full time NCM chairman for almost a month now, Union minister for minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that the “matter was under process.” The NCM chief’s appointment is based on the recommendations that will be sent by the ministry of minority affairs and will require the approval of the prime minister’s office.
Till the names are shortlisted and a final call is taken to fill up the post of chairman and four members, for now the current vice-chairman and member Atif Rasheed are jointly handling the work. Normally, each member is assigned a certain number of states for better supervision of complaints and concerns related to minorities. In the current situation the two existing members have divided the states between themselves to handle the complaints.
Rai was nominated as vice-chairman in April after former vice-chairman George Kurian resigned in March. In the midst of the pandemic, the term of representatives of the Buddhist, Jain and Zoroastrian minority communities also ended between May end and early June. The composition of NCM calls for members to be drawn from each of the six notified minority communities.
Speaking to TOI regarding the working of the NCM in the midst of the pandemic, Rai, the officiating chairman, said that they are trying to focus on strengthening the online complaint management system. “The system to submit complaints online was there earlier too but now we are trying to streamline it so that people who are unable to come to the NCM in the current scenario are able to seek redress to the online system. We are also working on a plan to arrange video conferencing sessions,” Rai added.
Data available on the NCM website regarding the number of complaints received over the last 10 years shows that in 2018-19 as many as 1,871 complaints were received from minority communities. The number was 1,497 in 2017-18. The number of complaints to NCM was much higher between 2009 to 2013-14.